By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Beaux Arts was founded by Frank Calvert, a newspaper artist and cartoonist, and Alfred T. Renfro, a writer, architect and photographer. The two created the Beaux Arts Workshop, a group of art enthusiasts, who set up a salon in downtown Seattle near the turn of the century.

The two men turned to Capt. E.W. Johnson, referred to as "the Nome Millionaire," to bankroll the land purchase for the Western Academy of the Beaux Arts.

The men bought 50 acres on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, back when it was densely forested. The land was platted into half-acre home sites, and 1,100 feet of waterfront was set aside as a community picnic grounds.

The streets in lower Beaux Arts followed the hilly geography, but were laid out in a pattern that creates the initials of the Beaux Arts Village. The pattern still exists, says Melissa Clausen, the community's volunteer historian.

Ten acres were set aside by Calvert and Renfro to be used for art studios for woodworking, sculpture, photography and other artistic pursuits. But that lofty goal never came to pass and the property was subdivided for homes.

Calvert and Renfo dreamed of creating a model community, where nature's aesthetics would be paired with the visual arts, a romantic vision borrowed from the French.

"By making the buildings and grounds of the Beaux Arts society an example for emulation in the matter of taste and artistic development, the organization hopes to stimulate further development on the part of individuals and other corporations," stated a report carried in the Dec. 18, 1909, issue of The Argus.

Beaux Arts would be a "spot in which the many notable artists who visit this wonderful country of ours can be entertained or can find a delightful resting place for as long a sojourn as they may care to make . . . the prospect of making Seattle the leading art center of the Northwest seems to be assured by this art community."

But first came the need for running water, electricity and telephones, none of which were immediately available on the Eastside at the turn of the century. Several years after the first homes were built, a well was dug for water. Electricity came soon after.

Getting to Seattle was another matter. Cross-lake ferry service from Beaux Arts to Leschi was provided several times a day. Once the villagers reached the other side, a street car took them downtown.

By the early 1950s, the community decided that it could control its own destiny by incorporating as a town. To qualify even as a fourth-class town, Beaux Arts needed at least 300 residents, but had only about 295.

Word was passed to residents that the community needed to grow. "Thanks to the wives of the neighborhood," a baby boom put the community over the top, says Clausen, only half joking.