Historic Tacoma mansion offers views and a bar on each floor. It can be yours for $1.75M
You’ve got to like stairs if you’re interesting in purchasing Tacoma’s Gray Mansion. There’s a climb up from North 45th Street just to reach the entrance of the four-level home. Once inside, you might go gaga at the hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovation work the current owners have put it into the historical building.
The 5,264-square-foot home at 4410 N. 45th St. is on the market for $1.75 million, according to listing agent Erik Molzen. For the right price, the owners will throw in their extensive European antique furniture collection.
“What’s cool about this house is (the owners) kept so much of the original character,” Molzen said. “But they’ve done some things like (making) the bathrooms more modern and kitchen more modern.”
There’s no need to climb stairs for an evening cocktail. Every floor has its own bar.
History
The New England colonial-style house was built in 1908 and “patterned after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Home,” according to a newspaper story from the time. It was built for Albert Gray, house vocalist for Tacoma’s Pantages Theater and private vocal instructor.
Gray was also a music teacher at Whitworth College when it was located in Tacoma from 1899 to 1912, on the grounds of the former Allen C. Mason Mansion. The college (now Whitworth University) relocated to Spokane in 1913.
Gray left the Tacoma area about the same time and might have followed the college to Spokane. By 1918 the Grays were living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Gray was a founder and the director of the Chattanooga Men’s Chorus.
New owners
Jose Santiago-Cummings and husband Jeff Sawyer purchased the home in 2009 for $662,000. Since then, Sawyer estimates, they’ve put another $400,000 in to renovating the home.
The elegant home is full of antique furniture purchased while Santiago-Cummings, 62, was serving in the Army and Sawyer, 59, was in the Air Force. Positions at Joint Base Lewis-McChord brought them to Tacoma. They’re both now retired.
When they purchased the home, it was heated by fuel oil from a 500-gallon tank, Sawyer said. It took $1,600 of oil a month to run the system.
“The first winter we stayed in this house, we kept sweat clothes on, like really bulky clothes, inside the house,” Sawyer recalled. “The wind would blow, and the curtains would actually move inside with the windows closed.”
Along with replacing all of the home’s windows, the couple installed a $50,000 geothermal heating system. It required tunneling 250 feet below the surface in the backyard. Now, only a modest amount of electricity is required to heat the home.
They also insulated the house during the renovation. Previously, it had none.
Master suite
Like many mansions of its era, Gray Mansion had two staircases — one for the family living there and another hidden staircase for servants. Realizing neither staircase worked well, they converted one to extra floor space and built a new dormer on the rear of the house to accommodate a new staircase to the second and third floors.
A 1800s vintage stained-glass window the couple bought in Europe glows in the landing between the main and second floors.
What was once a warren of servants quarters on the top floor was turned into a master suite. The stairs take a visitor to a lounge area, with a bar, of course. A bedroom and massive bathroom are accessed from there. Previously, the floor had no bathrooms.
“The views up here are phenomenal from every corner,” Molzen said. Residents have clear line of sights to Puget Sound, Mount Rainier and the Olympics.
Down sizing
The home has numerous decks. The kitchen has top-of-the-line appliances and an island with a massive, live-edge wood top from Vashon Island.
On the home’s walls, a collection of swords and other sharp implements is on display. Santiago-Cummings, a former surgeon, is a master knife maker who makes custom one-of-a-kind cutlery in the home’s basement.
Attached to the house is a separate residence that the couple rent out. It once housed an indoor pool, they said.
The couple have decided to relocate to North Carolina. Sawyer is having a tough time with Tacoma’s winters, and it will be closer to home for Santiago-Cummings, who was raised in Puerto Rico. The couple also have a daughter and grandson in North Carolina they will be closer to.
Their new home is 1,600 square feet. That means they’ll have to dispense with a lot of their antiques. Or sell them to the new owner.
“I love my antiques,” Santiago-Cummings said. “But I have learned to let the antiques go.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
