Real estate
An ever-changing Seattle real estate market
Wishing you all a beautiful spring ahead.
Our year-overyear numbers in Seattle area overall indicate a 46 percent drop in active listings. Inventory is not showing anything other than a typical seasonal rise in April, so it is likely we will continue to be in a market with about two to three weeks of inventory market wide.
Spafford Robbins Property Views
By The Numbers (3/1-4/22/22)
Denny Blaine, Broadmoor, Washington/Madison Park (single family homes)
11 sold homes
Average Sales Price: $2,740,360
Average Days on Market: 7
Average Price Per
Square Foot: $856
Lowest Sales Price: $620,000
Highest Sales Price: $5,795,000
There are currently 11 active properties for sale, with an average sales price of $3,356,000 and average days on market of 54 days.
There are currently 6 properties pending sale at time of print with an average list price of $3,061,667 and an average days on market of 21 days.
Denny Blaine, Broadmoor, Washington/Madison Park (condominiums)
6 Sold homes
Average Sales Price: $758,500
Average Days on Market: 39
Average Price per Square Foot:
$793
Lowest Sales Price: $350,000
Highest Sales Price: $1,025,000
There are currently four active properties for sale, with an average sales price of 1,639,625 and average days on market of 25 days.
There are currently two properties pending sale, with an average offering price of $1,586,000, with an average days on market of 245 days.
I am honored and happy to help with anything I can in maneuvering this ever-changing and dynamic Seattle real estate market. My team and I at GBK/ Compass are here to assist with the presentation of your home, thoughtful home search or just share some thoughts on where we see the market today!
Spafford Robbin, GBK/Compass SpaffordRobbins.com
Seattle Opera showcasing family friendly events
Seattle Opera’s 2021-22 season wraps up in May with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s crafty comedy “The Marriage of Figaro,” May 7 through May 22 at McCaw Hall. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.seattleopera.org/ on-stage/marriage-of-figaro-2022/, with tickets ranging from $35–$369.
For Family Day, May 15, students 18 and under pay only $20 for almost any seat, with special student-oriented activities during intermission. In addition to its mainstage programming, Seattle Opera offers a variety of events featuring new voices in opera and geared toward youth, families and adults.
Tickets for youth performances start at $5, while the Opera Talk, Creation Lab and Veterans Cohort Celebration are free and open to the public.
Coming Events
• Big Opera Party: 6 p.m. May 13 at The Opera Center
Dine under the stars while enjoying exclusive performances by cast members from The Marriage of Figaro.
Tickets and information is at https://www.seattleopera.org/ donate/2022-big-opera-party/.
• Path With Art Veterans Choir at Northwest Folklife Festival: May 30, Seattle Center
In partnership with Path with Art, Seattle Opera established the Veterans Choir as part of its 2019 production of The Falling and the Rising.
Since that event, the choir has evolved into a year-round program. Come hear this ensemble of dedicated veterans showcase their work at the Northwest Folklife Festival, time to be announced with the 2022 Folklife schedule.
For more information, visit https://www.seattleopera.org/ classes-camps-clubs/for-adults/ path-with-art-veterans-choir/.
SEE OPERA, PAGE 6
In praise of ephemeral plants
I’ll never stop loving the workhorses of the garden — the long-blooming perennials and annuals, the shrubs with multiple seasons of interest, and all the plants that furnish evergreen color and presence in the dark days of winter.
Pansies, wallflowers, geraniums, yarrow and hydrangeas generously offer bloom after bloom for months on end.
Japanese maples are beautiful bare, as leaves emerge and as they explode in color before departing in autumn.
A mugo pine shrub (Pinus “Mugo”) will provide its stalwart shrubbiness, like a spiky green gnome, 365 days of the year. These deliver the best bang for your buck if you have a small space or only plan to garden certain times of year.
Some plants may not bloom as long, but their flowers are so deeply romantic, bodacious in layered petals or swooningly fragrant, as to seem indispensable. I’m thinking of roses, lilacs and
peonies. These lead singers find their way into my gardens despite their diva-like behavior or calling in sick regularly.
With all these distractions over the years, it took me awhile to come around to the less flashy, supporting members of the garden cast — especially the ones that bloom and almost instantly disappear, leaving no leaves to remind/ warn you of their presence.
Not only am I likely to plant over and through so-called “ephemerals,” but giving precious garden space to something that blooms for two to three weeks and vanishes seemed crazy from a design standpoint.
Ephemerals turbocharge their life cycle to leaf out, bloom and set seed before tree canopies shade them out.
The first one that made it into my garden was the old-timey looking bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), which blooms for maybe three weeks, and then, when the heat gets too stultifying,
it hauls up its skirts and heads underground until next year. Those little hearts are so sweet and hang high over spring crocus and smaller daffodils adding color at another level.
However, if I would blame someone for adding another plant category to my already crowded garden and psyche, it would be Dan Hinkley.
The Indianola-based plant explorer sells his rare Windcliff plants, https://danieljhinkley.com/ plants/, at the Seattle nursery where I work. They are often tiny and of infinite variety, and regularly blow my mind.
Some examples are perennial anemones, hepatica, meconopsis and trillium for spring, or autumn crocus bulbs in fall.
Did you notice meconopsis in there? Meconopsis is the heralded Himalayan blue poppy, jointly adored for its blue-sky flowers dancing in air and feared for its propensity to leave the planet after a year or two. I had one for two whole seasons, a fact that fills me with unjustified pride.
The Rhododendron Species Garden even hosts Blue Poppy Day, which this year falls on May 21, https://rhodygarden.org/ events/blue-poppy-day-2022-artin-bloom/.
Now I tend to plant all these jewel-like wonders in the same
area, since they are mostly lovers of moist soil with partial shade. The extra bonus of this is I know to cram new hellebores, lilies or daisies elsewhere.
It’s a place where neither I nor the squirrel-hunting dog walk often, so it’s working out all right so far.
I think the ideal thing would be to have a raised bed or planter where you could showcase these plants in season and shuffle it to a less prominent spot the other 347 days of the year.
I squished two weensy sun-loving Globularia nudicaulis (a.k.a. naked-stalked globe daisy), which have almost navy-blue round peasized flowers in my railing box by the front door where I can keep an eye on it. I can’t wait for it to bloom again.
However, (you’ll be relieved to know) I have found a rationalization to add these tiny, blink-youmissed-them visions.The reason I strive for a four-season (or in Seattle’s weather, really something like a 16-season) garden is to appreciate all the notes and chord changes of nature’s annual symphony.
Much like holiday celebrations, these garden highlights act as touchstones to the earth’s movement through the year. It makes me feel grounded to cook pumpkin pie in fall and pick fresh
“Much like holiday celebrations, these garden highlights act as touchstones to the earth’s movement through the year. It makes me feel grounded to cook pumpkin pie in fall and pick fresh raspberries in summer."
raspberries in summer.
So — despite my resolution to decrease the one-itis in my garden — I think adding more notes can only increase one’s mindfulness and connection to nature, for those who will take the time to do so.
Thus, the two-week thrill of yellow Primula veris popping out from under my white-blooming Spirea “Ogon” is a hallmark of March’s crazy weather, reminds me to hunt for my variegated trillium to see if they survived living so close to the barbecue (it’s a high-traffic area), and to divide my snowdrop bulbs.
Task-stacking, mindfulness and more plants — win-win-win!
Erica Browne Grivas Get Growing
Northwest Trek, Point Defiance Zoo certified as
For the fourth consecutive year, Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, and Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville, are certified as sensory-inclusive venues by a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing understanding, acceptance and inclusion for people with sensory needs.
In 2019, the two sister zoos were among the first venues in Washington to become sensory-certified through KultureCity. Today, eight venues in the state are sensory-certified through the Alabama based organization. Overall, KultureCity has certified over 120 zoos and aquariums in four countries.
The zoos’ partnership with KultureCity includes ongoing staff training on how to recognize and support guests who may be experiencing sensory overload; identifying clearly marked Quiet Zones; and providing helpful tools to ensure guests feel comfortable during their zoo visit. Backpack-style sensory bags for guests include items like noise-canceling headphones, fidget tools, verbal cue cards and weighted lap pads.
Crowded, noise-filled areas can make it difficult for someone without these kinds of aids to feel comfortable. Bright lights, certain smells and other stimuli can also trigger discomfort in individuals with sensory-processing difficulties.
“Individuals with sensory needs want to enjoy zoos, aquariums, and wildlife parks with their families and friends but often have to leave because the environment is something they cannot adapt to,” KultureCity’s Executive Director Uma Srivastava said. “Sensory inclusion training and sup-
Photo courtesy Northwest Trek
For the fourth consecutive year, Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville and Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma have been certified as sensoryinclusive venues.
port ensures that community destinations, like Point Defiance Zoo and Northwest Trek, are prepared to welcome everyone with special needs.”
One in six individuals in the United States has a sensory need or an invisible disability, Srivastava said. Children and adults with sensory needs can include those with autism, Down syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention
deficit-hyperactivity disorder, cystic fibrosis, dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
At Point Defiance Zoo, guests can check out a sensory-inclusive bag at the front gate. Learn more at https://www.pdza.org/ plan-your-day/sensory-inclusive.
At Northwest Trek, guests can borrow a sensory-inclusive bag at the front ticket window. Learn more at https://www. nwtrek.org/visit/plan/sensory-inclusive/.
zoos
A new sensory garden
Children with sensory needs may also want to explore the colors, smells and textures in the brand-new sensory garden, which opened at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium April 1.
In the new Little Explorers Nature Play Garden, https://www.pdza.org/discover/ nature-play-garden/, young guests will see bright gold sunflowers, dusky blue lavender and sage, and dottings of pink, violet, scarlet and vermillion. Torch lilies tower over delicate asters. Guests can touch fuzzy yarrow, spiky aloe, stiff grasses and soft leaves. They can hear seedpods rattle and bees hum, or smell smoky sage, sweet mint and sun-warmed lavender.
Sensory gardens benefit people of all ages and sensory abilities. They help those with limited sight appreciate nature to the fullest and offer everyone the chance to learn how people with different abilities experience the world.
See wildlife from a vehicle
At Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, guests can experience the awe and wonder of seeing a moose, caribou, mountain goats, swans, elk and deer from the comfort of their own car during a Wild Drive, https:// www.nwtrek.org/visit/tours/wild-drive/. Guests can tune into the radio so they can hear the naturalist leading the tour talk in real time about the native Northwest species they are seeing up close as they drive by. This is an opportunity for everyone to be included in wildlife, regardless of their abilities.
Both zoos, the Little Explorers Nature Play Garden, and the Wild Drive are ADA accessible.
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Courtesy Metro Parks Tacoma
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QA woman raising money for Ukraine
By Jessica Keller QA&Mag News editor
For over a month, Oksana Tyulyu has arranged flowers in jars and bouquets that she has created and placed them in a makeshift stand outside her home on upper Queen Anne in hopes that people take the blooms and leave a donation to benefit people in her native Ukraine.
Tyulyu, who moved to the United States at 16 from Ukraine, still has family and friends living there, as does her husband, Bogdan.
She said ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, things have been very stressful, and creating the flower stand seemed like a good way to help.
“I am just going crazy reading all the things and talking to my family in Ukraine,” Tyulyu said. “I just wanted to do something to remind people about it. The flowers let me do something to keep my hands and mind busy.”
Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, and Tyulyu fears people’s interests in the European country are waning as time goes on.
Tyulyu said the flower stand is a way to remind people who pass her home on Third Avenue West, between West Blaine and West Garfield, that Ukraine is under siege and its people need help.
“You hear, you sympathize, and then life goes on, but that’s not the case for us because it’s where our loved ones are, and people are suffering,” she said.
Tyulyu needs no help remembering. She said she speaks with her aunt, who lives in the small town of Druzhkivka in eastern Ukraine, daily and hears about what is going on in the country.
April 8 was a difficult day for the family. The Russian military launched a missile strike that killed at least 50 people at a train station in the town of Krama-
OPERA, FROM PAGE 1
• Earth to Kenzie: Four performances — June 4 - 5, Tagney Jones Hall
Join for a new one-act opera suitable for all ages, particularly families with children. Melodies and memorable characters showcase a story that explores themes of homelessness, empathy and finding strength through adversity. The 11 a.m. performance on June 5 will be a sensory-friendly performance.
Tickets and info at https:// www.seattleopera.org/classescamps-clubs/for-everyone/ community-performances/earthto-kenzie-2022/.
• Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab 2022 Performances: 7:30 p.m. June 10 and June 11, Tagney Jones Hall Seattle Opera presents the next iteration of its composition workshop, which seeks to cultivate the next generation of opera compos-
Queen Anne resident Oksana Tyulyu and her son, Lev, arrange flowers at her small stand she has set up outside her home, on Third Avenue West between West Blaine and West Garfield, last month. She is hoping people will be inspired to donate to raise money for civilians in Ukraine, her country of birth.
torska, which is 10 minutes away from Druzhkivka.
Tyulyu said that her aunt went to the train station after learning about the strike to see what she could do to help and was horrified by the destruction.
Tyulyu said she can’t help but
ers and librettists in Washington State.
Each performance will feature four new 20-minute operas by composer/librettist teams, representing the culmination of months of development.
Tickets are free, with RSVP required at https://www.seattleopera.org/creationlab.
• Veterans Cohort Celebration: 4 p.m. June 25 at Tagney Jones Hall
Join Seattle Opera for a celebration of Path with Art’s Veterans Cohort, the year-long program that grew from 2019’s production of The Falling and the Rising. With art displays, poetry and essay readings and a performance by the Veterans Choir, this event will showcase the work done across the suite of Veterans Cohort classes.
More information at https:// www.seattleopera.org/classescamps-clubs/for-adults/pathwith-art-veterans-choir/.
share the pain.
“I feel like yes, I was born there, but it feels very, very scary that this can happen in our day and age, and I feel really helpless,” Tyulyu said through tears.
While some of her family members have evacuated, Tyulyu
said her aunt and uncle are community leaders and won’t leave until everybody else does. Her sister, Alina, a photographer, has also visited Ukraine since Russia invaded and has taken photos to share. Tyulyu said her flower stand is a way to do her part.
Even before the carnage April 8, Tyulyu had created small bouquets with feathers in them April 7 to represent children who were killed in recent violence.
“It’s been healing for me to do this particular display,” she said. “I think you don’t have to be a parent to feel the pain, but because I have a kid, he’s going to be 3 in May, it makes me feel even more I want to save and help the kids.”
Any money Tyulyu raises through the donations is being given to a friend in Seattle, who runs a non-profit, Grace Tea, www.gracetea.org, with 100 percent of the money raised going to community partners in Ukraine to help buy food, water, medications and necessities for people.
A portion of the donated money will be spent on gas and transportation to evacuate civilians.
Tyulyu said none of the money being collected is going toward military supplies or operations.
Tyulyu said the kindness and generosity she has received from her neighborhood through the flower stand thus far has been wonderful, and she intends to keep the stand up for as long as she can.
“I think once it gets warmer, it will be easier to maintain the stand and keep it there throughout the weeks,” Tyulyu said. “I was hoping it was going to be for a short time, but that doesn’t seem likely now.”
People who wish can send contributions through Venmo, venmo.com/tyulyu, and Cash app, cash.app/tyulyu.
To learn more about Tyulyu’s mission, visit her webpage, linktree.com/ukrainian.bird.
People can also follow her Instagram account @Ukrainian.bird. Tyulyu said people can also visit her sister’s Instagram, @alinatyulyu, to see photos her photographer sister has recently taken in Ukraine.
is an expertly conceived and crafted home in Seattle’s cherished Queen Anne neighborhood. Savor the stunning attention to detail in this truly distinctive urban residence that incorporates cutting-edge elements from the interior through the exterior. Innovative architecture, high-end finishes, and exceptional craftsmanship are always hallmarks of Halverson Design Build residences.
Photo by Laura Marie Rivera
Family reunion
Ican only write about my family reunion in hindsight. The reasons for going are obvious, but initially I resisted, staring at my invitation, then hiding it from view.
But as the world shifts under our feet, the personal effect is even greater: a feral-like need to connect with those we love, far more powerful than any word I can think of to describe it.
Upon arriving, I am stunned by the contrast of past, my past and present. I am transfixed. Emails and Christmas cards are one thing, but something so related, something whose existence derives from DNA yet extends well beyond genes, something like family, family in the flesh, that’s quite another. So much so that writer-cum-eavesdropper that I am, I start to scribble notes on a cocktail napkin.
But instead of feeling like a writer, I feel like a spy. Not the sister, daughter, cousin, niece and aunt I need to be between breathcatching silences.
I am so happy to be with people who look like me and talk like me that I almost burst into tears. The affinity I feel is my affinity.
However.
While I’ve remained close to my sister, since losing our mother, I see less of my dad than I like. And I confess, it’s been 20 years since I returned to the fold of my extended family — 20 years! Living in the Northwest can do this to an East Coast transplant.
I still have a clear mental picture of me all those years ago, Jordache-jeaned and riding a Greyhound bus across the country,
leaving home not a decision I needed to mull over.
From early on, I sensed that in order to find out who I was, I would need to shed, mile by mile, who I was not.
Yet, there is no denying the faces filling the reunion suite belong to the proud people who were there for me before our roads forked. And with each stride I take across the carpeted room, my world pauses, like a good listener, to let me move into my family’s orbit without hesitation, embarrassment or any of the other flustering emotions that define the wandering, restless will of an immigrant’s daughter.
Which brings me back to why, sitting around a table in a Manhattan supper club where photos of Frank Sinatra hang in gilded frames over the bar, I am reminded just how far I’ve strayed. Because though I wear my best dress from the Banana Republic, to the women of my family, unless your clothing has sequins, you are not dressed up.
And when Cousin Johnny actually says “badda-bing” for emphasis, I laugh out loud. Worse, when he stands by the door with his chin up and arms crossed behind him looking like a bouncer hired for our reunion, I joke that he reminds me of Tony Soprano.
This is where he shoots me a look with those thick black eyebrows to let me know that we are simpatico, sure, but I’d better put a lid on it. And only after I nod to a second round of antipasto am I fully trusted. Because he is not, I soon discover, anywhere near amenable enough to consider the word “vegetarian.”
I don’t let this bother me. To my family, food is tantamount to faith, and you don’t stray from its consecrated dictum. This might be my body, but it is their Holy Eucharist.
But don’t a lot of my friends in Seattle define a huge part of themselves by what they will or will not eat? Isn’t there usually some food politics to contend with in the company of those of us who feel entitled to our likes and dislikes no matter what? No matter where? No matter how contradictory?
Recently, at one of those B & B breakfast tables that make
“Emails and Christmas cards are one thing, but something so related, something whose existence derives from DNA yet extends well beyond genes, something like family, family in the flesh, that’s quite another.”
me cringe (I am not a morning person. I am especially not a morning person who likes to sit with strangers at 8 a.m. and make small talk), when the vegan sitting across from me spoke out in support of the Native American right to slaughter another magnificent whale, I had to challenge her convictions no matter how many times my husband kicked me under the table.
Mentally, I compare this to my family’s food issues at hand: whether a pound of pasta per person is enough to serve. How, as soon as lunch is over, conversation shifts to supper.
I don’t even try to give my family a view of my city with which they can identify. A city whose people eagerly espouse cultures other than their own as if searching for an identity (think Tibetan prayer flags snapping over ScotchIrish foyers) and how this differs from my family’s way of embracing only their own culture. I figure, when you get right down to it, is there any real difference between meditation crystals and rosary beads if peace of mind is all you’re after?
To my great surprise, and as exhausted as it made me, I climbed back up the rungs of our family tree.
And what did I learn?
That I now have the tools to make whole my life and work.
That I can turn a new leaf into one far more flexible; one that eases any rigid idea I might have had about my own autonomy.
That family, however you define it, asks us to reach a little higher, do something more, make the extra effort.
— Mary Lou Sanelli’s latest book, “Every Little Thing,” has been nominated for a 2022 Washington State Book Award. Find it at Magnolia’s Bookstore and The Queen Anne Book Company, www.marylousanelli.com.
People asked to donate reusable water bottles to help unhoused community
We Heart Seattle is collecting reusable water bottles to donate to unhoused people as a way to support hydration while also eliminating waste. For donation drop-off information, contact beth@weheartseattle. org.
Mary Lou Sanelli Falling Awake
