Vintage Mountlake Terrace home wins city’s Evergreen Award

It’s not often that a city gets a $5,000 question: If we give you this grant, what would you do with it?

It came from the Snohomish County-Camano Association of Realtors, and it didn’t take Mountlake Terrace long to decide.

The city started a program in 2009 recognizing efforts to beautify, upgrade and renovate properties, naming it the Evergreen Awards.

This year the awards will be given in two categories — Best Maintained and Best Transformation — to recognize steps to help make the city “a nice community where people want to live or do business,” said Virginia Olsen, the city’s community relations director.

The attention to detail at a home on 230th Street SW — the flower beds brimming with spring blooms and the child-sized Adirondack chairs on the front porch — caught Olsen’s eye in the spring.

“They had a white rocking horse out front and just a nice assortment of flowers in the spring — rhodies, azaleas, tulips and bluebells,” she said. “They have a charming home.”

So when it came time to consider a home for the Best Maintained award she contacted the owners, Rebecca and Joel Chadband.

The home was built in 1964, a vintage with special appeal to Rebecca Chadband. “I love mid-century homes and vaulted ceilings,” she said. “I like the clean lines and simplicity.”

The couple bought the home five years ago, moving from Edmonds in search of a larger home to accommodate their growing family, which now includes three children: Beatrice, 5, Archer, 2½, and Westley, 9 months.

It’s close, about a half block from Edmonds, but she said she’s grown to love Mountlake Terrace. “The location is perfect,” she said.

Their quarter-acre lot has “too many flower beds to count offhand,” she said. “They basically circle around the walkways and pathways.”

This year’s Best Transformation award was given to the Housing Authority of Snohomish County for the conversion of Trillium Apartments at 23000 55th Ave W. The building, constructed in 1977, previously was known as Tall Firs.

The housing authority acquired the property in 2015 from what was then called Senior Services of Snohomish County (now Homage Senior Services).

About $1.8 million was spent renovating the building’s 40 apartments, said Kristen Cane, the housing authority’s director of policy and development.

The changes included replacing the floor, cabinets, counter tops and appliances, as well as replacing the building’s roof, installing new insulation, improving entrances and building a new community garden with raised beds.

The apartments are targeted for adults 62 and older. Over time, the goal is to have half of the building’s apartments leased by veterans. To live there, the annual income for a single adult cannot exceed $37,450.

“We feel grateful to be honored,” Cane said, “and it’s good for our work to be recognized in the community.”

The ninth annual Evergreen Awards ceremony will be Wednesday. Winners will be presented with a photograph of their home or business, as well as a commemorative plaque and certificate.

There can be up to five categories of awards, depending on the number and type of nominations. They are: Best Maintained Residence, Best Maintained Business, Best Maintained Multifamily Property, Most Sustainable Property and Best Transformation.

Nominees are judged against properties in the same neighborhood: Cedar Terrace, Gateway, Lake Ballinger, Melody Hill, Cascade View and Town Center.

Residents are encouraged to help the city find properties that have been improved, especially within the past year.

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.