Queen Anne High School penthouse has a library for a bedroom

Queen Anne High School is one of the city’s more popular examples of adaptive reuse. The ornate, 1910 terra cotta building, which we featured just this morning as one of Seattle’s most iconic buildings, served as an actual school until the 1980s. Now, the building is filled with condos, and because of the unique structure of the building, no two are alike.

Courtesy of Windermere

This penthouse unit, which hit the market last week, stands out for a few reasons. First, it’s bigger than many, at more than 1,400 square feet. Second, one of the bedrooms—presumably the guest bedroom, although mileage may vary—is nestled within a library.

It’s not the first time a Queen Anne High School condo made a beeline for our bookish hearts—a loft listed in late September came with a tiny sliding-ladder bookshelf in the living room. While we called that a library because it harkened back to Beauty and the Beast, this one can fit a much larger book collection. Fold up the bed and leave the barn doors open and it becomes a cozy nook off the common areas.

Even without the addition of the library, the living room feels expansive thanks to high ceilings and gigantic windows. The open layout, lined with hardwood floors, includes the dining area and the kitchen—and benefits from top-floor views of the water and the city, providing a Space Needle view without even heading to the shared roof deck.

The master bedroom, the one that’s not also a library, features those same huge windows, and some incredible views of its own, plus an attached bathroom and walk-in closet.

Being one of the larger units and having some of the best views means in this building means that this condo doesn’t come cheap. It’s listed or $1.45 million—but after spending that much, the $1,001 a month in HOA dues might not seem so bad.

• 201 Galer Street Unit 502 [Windermere]
• This Queen Anne High School condo comes with a little library [CS]
• 21 iconic Seattle buildings [CS]