Kerry Park view of the skyline and Rainier
— the evenings the mountain is out.
Not only on a wall.
“The park is small, just over an acre on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill, with West Highland Drive at its back and the city laid out below. The Space Needle sits left of centre, the downtown towers cluster to its right, and on a clear day Mount Rainier rises behind the skyline like a piece of weather. Most evenings the mountain is cloud. The minutes it is not are why the bench stays full.
Kerry Park view of the skyline and Rainier, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kerry Park is a small public park on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill, about 350 feet above Elliott Bay on the north edge of downtown Seattle. The land was donated to the city by Albert Sperry Kerry Sr. and his wife in 1927 with the stipulation that the view be preserved. The viewpoint covers about 1.26 acres along West Highland Drive between 2nd and 3rd Avenues West. From the rail at the south edge, the Space Needle stands at roughly 605 feet to the southeast, the downtown towers spread behind it, and Mount Rainier rises 14,411 feet at about 60 miles south-southeast. The Doris Totten Chase steel sculpture "Changing Form," installed in 1971, anchors the lower terrace.
The view earns its reputation around the blue hour. Sunset puts the downtown towers in silhouette against the south and west sky; the Space Needle's lights come on at civil twilight, and the city windows light up tower by tower over the next thirty minutes. Mount Rainier sits about 60 miles south-southeast, and on the roughly 60 days a year the lower atmosphere is clear enough, the mountain catches the last of the sunset on its eastern faces ten minutes after the city has gone blue. Photographers arrive an hour before sunset; the rail fills by twenty minutes after.
The park is open from 4:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. There is no admission, no parking lot on site, and limited street parking on West Highland Drive. Kerry Park is a short walk west from the Queen Anne business district along the top of the hill, and a steeper walk up from Seattle Center. Independence Day fireworks, July 4 sunsets, and New Year's Eve at the Space Needle make the rail elbow-to-elbow on those nights. On regular weekdays in winter, the view is yours from the bench.