Madrona Park is located along Lake Washington at 853 Lake Washington Blvd., 98122. It is 31 acres and includes a bathing beach, a jogging path, hillside paths, a picnic shelter, shoreline access and a dance studio.
John Charles Olmsted visited Madrona Park, an existing “streetcar destination park”, with the Park Commissioners on his second day in Seattle. The 1903 Olmsted Plan incorporated Madrona Park, located on Lake Washington Boulevard. The upper steep hillside had been developed with trails and rustic gazebos, which do not survive. The board of parks commissioners reported in 1909 that the park includes “rustic summer houses distributed on the slopes, reached by winding paths,” and along the lakefront were swings, two concessions, boat house, hotel and pavilion. The park “will undoubtably continue to be what is has been in the past, an ideal family park.”
Today the lakeside portion includes a beach with seasonal lifeguard, a picnic area and a dance studio. The steep hill on the west side of Lake Washington Boulevard is forested and has been restored with native vegetation. In recent years, with the help of the neighborhood, the creek through the ravine to the shore has been daylighted and trails have been developed.
The land was acquired by the City in 1908, and the bathhouse was converted to a dance studio in 1971.
