The Architect Who Built Seattle’s Skyline (But Lost the Biggest Job)
In 1890, L.H. Fisher submitted plans for a magnificent new hotel that Denny himself called 'the most perfect of any submitted.' But cost concerns killed it—launching a career that would define Seattle's architecture.
Mr. L. H. Fisher, the well-known architect of this city, has received the following very complimentary letter from the committee which for a number of weeks examined and discussed the great number of plans submitted for the Denny Hotel.
SEATTLE, Jan. 21, 1890. Messrs. Fisher & Clark, Architects, Seattle: The committee chosen to select plans for the Denny Hotel have not been able to accept those presented by you. After carefully considering all the plans submitted, the choice lay between yours and the ones finally selected. The conclusion was reached as to why your plans would come within the limit of cost, the beauty and general appearance of the structure would be destroyed.
In returning the plans to you, we do so with many regrets that it was impossible for us to select yours, for, taking everything into consideration, your plans were the most perfect of any submitted to us, and had our means been unlimited, yours would have undoubtedly been the choice of the committee. Very truly yours, A. A. DENNY.
The plans submitted by Mr. Fisher, over which the committee hesitated so long, are those of a magnificent four-story structure of the composite style of architecture, and to be built of stone and brick. Mr. Fisher is quite certain that its cost would not be any more than that of the building selected.
Mr. Fisher, however, has enough other work on hand to compensate him for the loss of his hotel plan. That work upon which he is now engaged represents a value of $750,000. Of this $115,000 is in new buildings at Port Townsend and the remainder in Seattle. The new six-story Yesler building, the large eight-story Gilmore block and the Y. M. C. A. building, are samples of the work upon which Mr. Fisher is now engaged. The Korn block, the Bow block and the Armory are amongst those he has finished.
Mr. Fisher keeps four competent and skillful architects constantly employed at his office on James street. His business, however, is so large that he cannot accept orders for plans for ordinary residences, but confines himself to larger edifices.
This 1890 rejection highlights the eternal tension in urban development between aesthetic ambition and budgetary reality—a struggle as old as Seattle itself. L.H. Fisher’s career illustrates how early architectural firms scaled up rapidly to meet the demands of a booming frontier city, laying the physical groundwork for the commercial districts we recognize today.
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