estate holdings and build a mansion in Oakland, California. He spent the next decade traveling up and down the coast from his home, buying and developing investment properties and businesses in Seattle as well as Portland, Oregon, where he helped establish a bank and where another one of his brothers, A. M. Starr was mayor. Lewis Starr had constructed several large buildings in downtown Seattle with more proposed before passing away in October 1887 after an extended illness. The Building Prior to the fire this property was occupied by a 2-story brick building used by the Northwestern Cracker Company that Starr had built in about 1886. Many of his Seattle properties would be rebuilt after the great fire with buildings bearing his name. While the Starr Estate had commissioned Elmer H. Fisher to design their building (co-owned with W.P. Boyd) on Pioneer Square, for this project they hired William E. Boone, Seattle's leading architect prior to the fire, who would hold his own into the early 1900s. With the foundation and retaining walls begun in late 1889, the Starr Building was completed at a cost of $75,000 ($ in dollars) by contractor James McKendrick and as reported in the summer of 1890, $12,000 in stone, $3,000 in iron 1.2 million bricks and 3,000 ft of lumber had gone into its construction. Due to the dramatic slope of the property towards Elliott Bay, the four story building had two additional floors below 1st Avenue, facing Post Alley, which housed various industrial enterprises. The Galt Brothers, a tile and fireplace accessory dealer, would first occupy the space in 1891 and The Seattle Woolen Mills would locate their offices in the lower floors during the Yukon Gold Rush. For most of the decade the Starr Building stood out as the only fully-built structure on the block. Though designed for office space with 66 suites on its upper floors, contemporary reports of high demand for office space in Seattle turned out to be greatly exaggerated and as early as 1891, the building's upper floors were occupied by the Ye Kenilworth Inn, a Single resident occupancy hotel operated by Minnie Hayward. The Kenilworth was closed and its furnishings liquidated in November 1892 but was back open within a month under the proprietorship of Mrs. L.M. Kinnaman. In 1897 the hotel was purchased by Denver realtor Henry Harding for his sister-in-law to run. Harding turned out