For many travelers, it’s the gateway to Auburn.
As they wind their way west on State Route 18, descending from the foothills and crossing the Green River Bridge, it rises up on their left, a lone Victorian-era mansion. Listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, the house has marked the eastern boundary of the city since its construction in 1894.
“People come from all over,” said Pat Hallowell, president of the Neely Mansion Association. “I get a lot of calls from all over because they see it here off of Highway 18. They say how much they love this house because they drive by it all the time.”
For the past 25 years, Hallowell and other association volunteers have painstakingly and lovingly labored to restore the mansion to its former glory. It’s an ongoing process marked by many fits and starts.
Aaron and David Neely, early pioneers to the Green River Valley, built the house. The original Neely farm once took up more than 200 acres of land in the valley and was a social hub. Nearby Hummel’s Ferry once provided the only way across the Green River in the area.
Built between 1891 and 1894, the mansion first was home to Aaron and Sarah Graham Neely, who lived in the house for just a few years before moving to other digs in the city proper.
Period pieces and photographs furnish the house’s eight main rooms, offering a glimpse into the lives of its residents, which included not only the Neelys but also a Swiss farming family and several generations of Japanese farmers.
Hallowell explained that although the furnishings are not the original belongings of the house’s inhabitants, she tried to reflect the things that the mansion’s residents might have had.
“I tried to reflect the whole history of the house,” she said. “I tried to incorporate some Japanese artifacts also.”
“Most of the furnishings and artifacts are donations, or things that Pat has found,” Karen Meador, a historian and a member of the Association of King County Historical Organizations, added.
After the house was left derelict and allowed to fall into disrepair for years, the Neely Mansion Association acquired it and began the restoration.
Among the original features of the house painstakingly salvaged is the ornamental good luck horseshoe medallion set into the 12-foot high ceiling in the entry way.
Also original is the etched transom window over the front door, a piece of glass that made the perilous journey by boat from the East Coast to Washington via South America’s Cape Horn.
Hallowell said volunteers made many discoveries while working in the house.
She pointed to a metal piece on the fireplace in the back parlor room, forged with “ASN-SN94.”
“We found that while we were cleaning it,” she said. “It was so rusty you couldn’t tell there were letters there at first. But somebody said they thought they saw a letter, and I got down with a wire brush and started cleaning it. That was a really neat discovery.”
The letters stand for “Aaron Stewart Neely-Sarah Neely, 1894,” Hallowell added.
The Neely Mansion Association plans to restore the Japanese-style bath house behind the mansion, a structure commonly built by Japanese immigrant farmers in the area. Meador explained that the bathhouses were once plentiful in the region, but are now quite rare.
“We’d like to get this land marked and restored,” Hallowell said.
Funding for the ongoing restoration of the house has come from many sources over the years, including grants, fundraisers and donations, Hallowell said.
“We don’t get a lot of big-time support, but we keep on trucking,” she said.
Many Auburn residents recall the days before the house was restored, when it was used as a haunted house, with proceeds going toward the restoration.
“We made fabulous money for those days,” Hallowell said. “If we were open six days, we made $6,000.”
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Today the house makes money by hosting Victorian tea services, craft fairs and rentals for small weddings and events.
For Meador, who said she passes by the house daily, the appeal of the old mansion is easy to grasp.
“The whole history of the American West Coast is here,” Meador said. “There is something here for everyone. It appeals on a lot of different levels. If people are not interested in history, then they’re interested in the Victorian era, or the ethnic history. Or they are gardeners. They just don‘t build them like this any more.”
Hallowell, who has worked in and on the house for more than a quarter-century, said she just wants people to be able to get a glimpse of how people lived in days gone by.
“I wanted this to be a living museum, not a place just full of signs and plaques,” Hallowell said. “The greatest compliment I get is when people ask who lives here.”
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The Neely Mansion is open for tours from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays through September, or by appointment. For more information call 253-833-2116 or visit www.neelymansion.org.
