Seattle's dorkiest condo names
Lumen, Brix, Veer and Revo: Big development demands creative naming, and the city's condo marketers are responding.
Legend has it that the first condominium project in the Seattle area was built by John Ehrlichman, the local land-use lawyer who gained fame from his involvement with another condo project called Watergate.
What sticks in my mind was the dorky name of the project: El Condo. It's like one of those attempts to class something up by adding an exotic prefix. Like Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.
Ehrlichman had been inspired by the condominium concept, the story goes, on a trip to Hawaii. He wanted to bring it to the Northwest mainland. Back in the early 1960s, the word "condo" was both descriptive but also probably rather new-sounding.
Naming conventions fall in and out of style. Anyone who's lived in the suburbs knows that there has long been a vogue to make everything sound settled, and classy, like a wee bit of Britain: English Hills, Canterbury, Sherwood Forest. Co-opting Native American names has also been a winner: Klahanie, Snoqualmie Ridge, The Salish Lodge.
Big development demands creative naming, and marketing strategies use those names to set a tone.
I don't know about you, but I have been getting all kinds of jumbo-sized postcards in my mailbox lately, the kind you usually get during political campaigns. Only these are for new Seattle condo projects. Maybe it's because I am a renter. Are you getting these, too? I'd like to hear if you are.
They're all pretty much the same: color photographs, pictures of lavish granite countertops and lovely views, and beautiful people who are living "just steps away" from an unspeakable number of "urban amenities." Some show couples riding scooters on cobblestone streets in bellbottoms. Yes, you'll love the smell of macchiatos in the morning.
This junk mail is selling the fussy Seattle lifestyle we once saw on Frasier.
But the funniest part is the naming conventions that are in vogue.
I have postcards for Trio, Trace, Tavona, and Tobira. Some consultant must have told them about the magnetism of the letter "T". But it's also striking that these names don't really mean anything.
Trio and Trace sound like new model hybrids, and Tavona is probably next door to Lark. And Tobira, wasn't that the place Gen. Rommel stormed with the Afrika Korps?
The latest issue of Seattle magazine is out (disclosure: I write a monthly column for them). It features a "Condo Buyers Guide."
It confirms that, like carmakers and drug companies, local developers are coming up with nonsense words, or real words that sound utterly random when applied to glass towers and converted warehouses. Here are some examples: Veer, Enso, Revo 225, Equinox, Lumen, Element (the consultants seem to like "E" too).
Or then there's Brix on Capitol Hill which is made of, guess what? Bricks. We're reassured that this residence is "completely Capitol Hill," brix and all, which is an "evolving" community. I presume this doesn't refer to evolving as in "enlightenment" but evolving in that it's being gentrified by big-monied hipster wannabes who seem to have the carefully cultivated casual Gap look that is de rigeur now among Microsoft employees. Whatever happened to pocket protectors?
Some like to pun on their location, like Fini which is on Phinney Ridge. Get it? If you don't, they explain: "Fini, On the Ridge, Infinitely Northwest." And infinitely barf-inducing.
Perhaps the last condo in town should be named Finis.
No, that would make too much sense.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Apr 6, 12:47 p.m. inappropriate
It's so good to read your column again!: As a resident of Kauhale Beach Cove (yes there is a cove, and Kauhale actually means something over here in Hawaii) I enjoyed a great morning laugh courtesy of Skip's column.
Keep it up; it's great reading and unquestioningly refreshing to read Crosscut and my favorite journalist's articles.
Posted Fri, Apr 6, 2 p.m. inappropriate
The Radical Chic of "The Helix": Excellent column, Skip. FYI, the name of the spanking-new apartment building on the corner of 12th and 50th in the U-District is, alas, "The Helix." Could the developer be old enough to recall the colorful history of the underground Seattle Helix? Tom Wolfe would laugh, but no one better tell Walt Crowley...
Posted Sat, Apr 7, 2:27 p.m. inappropriate
Mr Berger is mistaken . . .: . . . when he includes Enso in the group of "real words that sound utterly random when applied to glass towers...".
Enso, symbolizing enlightenment, strength, and the universe, is Japanese for "circle", which is why the building's residential floor plates are shaped like puzzle pieces. It only makes sense.
Posted Sat, Apr 7, 4:10 p.m. inappropriate
My favorite is "Noland Homes" here in Ballard: ... because it *actually describes* what you're buying: NO LAND.
Posted Sat, Apr 7, 11 p.m. inappropriate
The "Summit at Madison Park" is neither: OK, so it's not a condo (it's rental apartments) and the individual words mean something, but the apartments over the Safeway at 23rd & Madison deserve some sort of bad name award. The building is called "The Summit at Madison Park" but:
a) It's not in Madison Park. Madison Park is about a mile down the road. We call the neighborhood "Madison-Miller", that being our City-approved residential Urban Village, but what do we know?
b) It's not on a summit. it's about 1/3 of the way down the hill. The summit of E. Madison Street is up at about 17th, near the Trader Joe's. The (equally cloyingly named) "Views at Madison" apartments are pretty close to the summit and:
a) are on Madison
b) have some stunning views of Mt. Rainier, which you can enjoy from the open, publicly accessible, stairways.
Respectfully,
Andrew Taylor
who grew up in England, where even individual houses have names. See:"How to be an alien"
Posted Sun, Apr 8, 9:22 a.m. inappropriate
Suburban Developments: Whilst I try and avoid Bellevue, Kent, etc sometimes family calls and there is no way out. But the drive is worth it for amusement value: the developments all seem to be named in the one from column A and one from Column B fashion. Column A being names that attempt to set a Northwest sense of place (ie, any Native American word or tribe; indigenous northwest fauna; a nearby city name; etc - you get the picture) and Column B being ANY physical feature of the earth. Thus we have such goodies as Totem Lake, Madrona Ridge, Auburn Heights. None of the above feature any totem poles, lakes, madrona trees, ridges or heights . My suggestion for the next planned development is Little Boxes Lots.
Posted Mon, Apr 9, 12:46 a.m. inappropriate
We hit on this 6 months ago ...: ... with the nuttily named "Verge" in West Seattle, which is on the verge of nothing so much as the Port of Seattle waste heaps across the street. We also have NoMo 12, a development north of Morgan Junction that represents the first known example of anyone trying to bestow SoMa/TriBeCa/etc. nicknamettes on WS neighborhoods.
Posted Mon, Apr 9, 10:24 a.m. inappropriate
NoMo: Wasn't that one of Stan Boreson's dogs?
Posted Sat, Apr 14, 10:53 p.m. inappropriate
RE: The "Summit at Madison Park" is neither: As a resident of "The Summit at Madison Park" I'll add that residents have asked about changing the name -- it's that embarrassing. We're not owners in any regard, we only rent (so far), so we've gotten nowhere with changing the name.
The name is not correct, but it is logical. They're marketing to people moving here from afar, who don't know any better. Who wouldn't like to live on a summit? and topography isn't included in popular online maps (though perhaps for Seattle it should be) so how would someone moving from New York know any better? If you had to choose between potential residents' search results for "Madison Park" or "the Central District," which neighborhood would you claim to be in? Accuracy in naming: would that be "Locally Resented Host of Federal Agents Lording Over Seattle's Most Dangerous Corner?"
As for "Brix" there, too is logic: the assumed love of wine among potential residents and the use of "brix" as a unit of measure for sugar in wine, pronounced "breee." My guess would be that being made of bricks is a punny, but accidental double entendre. Condo names are meant to strike a cord with target markets. If a name appears ridiculous and you are in the target market, then that's a poor marketing decision like for example, they may have overestimated knowledge of wine in their target market. You might also not actually be in the target market, which I don't in any way mean as an insult, of course!
"Trace" might be meant to reflect the online lifestyle. Savvy users can trace other users' IP addresses, mobile call coordinates, and the like, thus "trace" as a reasonably cool name for your building. It's likely that condo buying people in Seattle know a lot about wine, or know a lot about technology, and as such "Brix" and "Trace" aren't totally ridiculous. The general science of good naming comes into play of course, where you're looking for something memorable, familiar but unexpected in a place name, and so on. Again, "Brix" and "Trace" fit all the general criteria as well as those criteria specific to this target market.
Posted Sun, Feb 1, 9:03 p.m. inappropriate
cheapshitcondos.com
Posted Thu, Oct 29, 4:15 p.m. inappropriate
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