Phillips House

Location: 224 17th Ave SE
Local register, South Capitol National Historic Neighborhood

Phillips House, 1939, Thurston County Assessor, Southwest Regional Archives

Phillips House today (2014), photo by Deb Ross

This comfortable Craftsman style home is from the Tumwater Lumber Mills catalogue and dates from 1922. Its massive round porch columns give the home a neo-Colonial flavor. Tumwater Lumber Mills was a company founded by the Swedish-born Anderson brothers and was the source for over 50 homes in the South Capitol neighborhood as well as several homes on the West Side of Olympia (see, e.g., Harmon House for more information about this company). Frank Phillips, the owner, was a dentist. The home is on the local register and in the South Capitol National Historic Neighborhood.

Olympia Heritage inventory

South Capitol National Historic Neighborhood

Ida B. Smith Studio – 4/27/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Pictured here is the studio of photographer Ida B. Smith, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th century. The studio, shared with her sister, photographer Agnes Mitchel, was near the corner of Jefferson and 4th Avenue, next door…
April 27, 2025
Bus Station by Vibert Jeffers – 4/20/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Vibert Jeffers was a prolific Olympia-based photographer, having inherited the business from his father and mother, Joseph and Opal Jeffers. This photograph of the North Coast (later Greyhound) bus depot in downtown Olympia was taken in 1937, soon after the depot…
April 23, 2025
Ida B. Smith self portrait – 4/14/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Ida B. Smith, pictured here in a self-portrait, came to Olympia with her husband in about 1891. After her husband’s death, Ida took up professional photography, first with her sister Agnes Mitchel and then on her own. Photograph selected and captioned…
April 14, 2025