By ED PENHALE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The Mount Baker district is unique in Seattle because it was one of the first planned residential developments where house lots and streets were integrated with the area's natural amenities, making it one the best examples of what architects call the English or "picturesque" type of landscape planning.

David Denny was the first pioneer to own land in the area, which he later sold to the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad. The railroad sold to the land to real estate developer Dan Jones of the Hunter Tract Improvement Co., which hired the Olmstead Brothers. The Olmsteads, responsible for many of Seattle's parks and boulevards, laid out streets and lots fitting the topography in order to provide views, privacy and pretty streets.

The area's topography is mainly defined by the north-south ridges. The eastern slopes of the ridges that roll down to the Lake Washington shoreline offer sweeping panoramas of Lake Washington, with the Cascade Mountains in the distance. The western slopes have more limited views of the Rainier Valley, along with some striking vistas of downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay.

The area weathered the construction of the first Lake Washington Floating Bridge, which opened in the early 1940, and by the end of World War II, the Seattle area's most expensive homes were found in Hunts Point -- and Mount Baker.