The north Ballard suburb of Crown Hill sits on a gentle rise of land stretching from NW 75th Street to NW 100th Street and is bordered by the Loyal Heights neighborhood to the west and Greenwood to the east. Although the Seattle community has no town center, its commercial crossroads meet at 15th Avenue NW and NW 85th Street and follow northeastward along Holman Road NW, named after realtor Axel Holman, who platted Sunset Hill area in the Loyal Heights neighborhood. When Ballard city residents voted to annex their town to Seattle in 1907, Crown Hill was still blanketed by Western red cedar, Douglas-fir, and Western hemlock conifers. Few settlers had ventured into the area, even though most of the land was now platted for residential development. Over the next nine decades growth in this quiet Ballard suburb was slow at first, then exploded during the World War II era. Today Crown Hill is home to more than 7,000 residents.
With rising property values in many parts of Seattle due to the migration back to urban living after decades of "white flight," and with an influx of high tech migrants with deep financial pockets, the bedroom Ballard communities of Loyal Heights and Crown Hill have undergone gentrification. The razing of aging homes in poor repair and replacement with apartment buildings and "skinny" homes have brought new and younger people to the area. Older homes are being restored and preserved. Crown Hill, once a wilderness suburb of the city of Ballard, whose few inhabitants resided six feet under, retains a small town feeling even as the city around it continues to grow.
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