The Man Behind Building Yesler Terrace as a Model Development

Jesse Epstein left a trove of positive change and learning for Pacific Northwesterners. His early life was spent in Russia, land of his birth.  The next 16 years his home was Great Falls, Montana.  In 1928 he won a public speaking contest and headed for the University of Washington in Seattle.

After exposure to life in the big city and on the campus of a prestigious school where he earned degrees in political science and law, Epstein felt a determination to fully participate in a new life.  Part radical organizer, part idealist, part grateful American patriot, he channeled his energies to a concern about the homeless.

Beginning in 1937, one year after his graduation from law school, Jesse crafted bills for the Washington state Legislature which helped establish public housing authorities.  He also wrote the ordinance passed by the Seattle City Council to set up a housing authority.  His lobbying efforts with then-Mayor Arthur Langlie and the Seattle City Council were prodigious, and he became the first chair of the housing authority’s Board of Commissioners and its first Executive Director.

Jesse Epstein’s seminal project, which later became an admired model for the nation, was Seattle’s Yesler Terrace.  The hill’s modest, racially integrated bungalows, many with sweeping views of Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle, remain vibrant today.  After much remodeling and some re-design these units became home for hundreds of poor citizens.

With funds from the federal government and a crusader’s skill, Jesse got eminent architects George Stoddard, Lister Holmes, John Jacobson, and William Bain to join in designing Yesler Terrace.  The project looks good today because design features make it appear different from every angle.  Also, the trees are full-grown and green lawns mark sidewalks and individual homes. Roger Sale, in Seattle Past to Present, praises Yesler Terrace as “not built for the ages, it was built to have a long and good life.”

Jesse later supervised other housing projects, including Rainier Vista on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Holly Park at the south end of Beacon Hill, Highpoint in West Seattle, and Sand Point on Lake Washington.

Beginning in the late 1950s Jesse Epstein joined the Mountaineers.  What began as a recreational pastime would become his second career. He served on the club’s committees and the Board of Trustees, rising to the club’s president in 1969.  He also helped establish the Mountaineer Library Fund which resulted in the production and sale of reading material related to the Pacific Northwest’s great outdoors.

In 1989 Jesse passed away after a long and constructive life.  Kitsap County’s and the Mountaineers’ Rhododendron Preserve are considered Jesse’s memorial, as well as Yesler Terrace.