My Hometown: Bellevue, WA

Photo of Bellevue skyline courtesy Wikipedia

Editor’s note: this is one in a series of "My Hometown" blog posts written by Zillow employees about the homes and towns where they grew up.

My Hometown:  Bellevue, WA
My Home’s value in 1977:  Approx. $100,000
Zestimate today:  $1,435,732

I grew up in the city of Bellevue, WA, which is directly across Lake Washington from Seattle.  Many like to consider it a suburb of Seattle; however, in the past decade Bellevue has exploded to become its own city — growing not only in population, but in the actual physical growth of the downtown area. Today, Bellevue is home to some big-name companies, including Expedia, T-Mobile, Eddie Bauer, and drugstore.com.  It has gotten to the point where if you put me in the middle of the lake (preferably on some sort of boat), spun me around blindfolded, and then asked me to point out which skyline was Seattle, I may not be able to do it.  (This is also due to the fact I have no sense of direction. Once when using my bathroom in the middle of the night, I could not find my way out, so I gave up and slept in the tub.)

The current population of Bellevue is nearly 117,000.  The city is situated relatively close to Seattle, Redmond (home of Microsoft – a small software company that makes the Xbox), and Tacoma.  It was originally founded in 1869 and was officially incorporated in 1953.  It’s nice to see that getting any sort of government approval took just as long back then.  Bellevue began as a mostly unpopulated rural area, but with the completion of the first of two floating bridges across the lake in 1940, the population started growing.  Traffic has been bad ever since.  The city is in King County and as far as I can tell the official city bird seems to be the BMW 760Li.

The home I grew up in (yup, it’s in there somewhere…), and where my parents still reside, is located in the Killarney Circle neighborhood just southwest of downtown.  The neighborhood was a great place to grow up as it was full of kids my age and we bordered on a large park with tennis courts, basketball hoops, and grass fields for football. As kids we would spend hours in the park only returning home when we heard our neighbor’s dinner bell ringing.  We were close enough to Lake Washington that we could get to several public beaches within minutes.

We moved into the house in 1977 (I was 2).  Our house is of the Pacific Northwest Contemporary design, which if you ask me simply means "1970’s ugly".  Thank goodness we are surrounded by trees.  Interestingly enough, my father actually built our house while taking a break from the insurance world to pursue the dream of owning a construction company.  Somehow the company went belly up just after our house was built and before the bills were paid.  For years my Mom had me believing that my Dad’s picture was up in the post office because he was such a good tipper at Christmas…

All joking aside, I have always loved my house and am glad that my parents refuse to sell it.  While it may be an odd shape, inside it is wide open with high ceilings, big windows, and a large kitchen that is the home’s focal point. Apparently, my sister has already claimed the home as hers on the grounds that I got an antique desk from my folks.  Seems fair…

Bellevue is a constantly growing community in a beautiful part of the country.  With the amazing views, old growth trees, a thriving downtown, and close location to major employers it is no wonder people are flocking to the area.  Me, I still love going home, seeing the dog, and having a nice dinner on the back deck with my family (when it is not raining of course).