Booth Building (The Cornish School of Music)

Built in 1906, the Booth Building was the site of Seattle's first premiere academy for the study of music and art. The Cornish School of Music was established by Nellie C. Cornish in 1914, and it had a significant influence on the city's music and arts culture, for which Seattle later became known. In 2020, the Capitol Hill Historical Society sought to designate the building as a local historic landmark in order to preserve it. However, an unexpected hurdle during the voting process foiled the effort, and the building missed receiving landmark status by a narrow margin. Currently, the Booth Building is owned by the YouthCare and Community Roots Housing, which plans to preserve the historic facade while renovating the property. The original school established by Nellie Cornish has since evolved to become the Cornish College of the Arts, a private art college located in downtown Seattle's Denny Triangle neighborhood.

In 1914, Nellie Centennial Cornish (1876 - 1956), a music teacher and professional pianist, opened The Cornish School of Music in Seattle's Booth Building. Cornish established her academy in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood after spending time in California, where she attended musical concerts and performed music herself, as she had done in the Pacific Northwest since 1900. Her school soon occupied the entire third floor of the Booth Building, a three-story Spanish Revival structure designed by the Seattle architects Thompson and Thompson. The space included ten classrooms and a large recital hall. In 1921, Cornish relocated her academy farther north on Capitol Hill to the intersection of Harvard Avenue and Roy Street. Over time, the school also added art, literature, languages, and dance to its curriculum, and it became known as The Cornish School for the Allied Arts.

By 1920, The Cornish School was busy providing music instruction to 800 students. It utilized Montessori methods of piano instruction, along with training in solfege, eurythmics, voice technique, harmony, counterpoint, composition, theory, and performance. With Nellie Cornish still at the helm, the faculty also included several professional musicians who were esteemed in cello, violin, flute, clarinet, harp, drama, and opera performance. In addition, a few faculty members were musical luminaries from Russia who had arrived in the U.S. after fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. Three faculty members formed "The Cornish Trio," which became a source of prestige for the school, as classical music was rarely heard in Seattle at the time. Rounding out the curriculum, the school also offered a course on whistling taught by the vaudeville performer, Charles B. Hutchins. During his master class, he taught a dozen types of advanced whistling, including bass and treble notes, chords, and words.

The Cornish School viewed music as equal to other disciplines of study and considered it essential to happiness. Nellie Cornish held to this philosophy throughout her teaching career. Shortly after opening her school, she gave a speech in 1915 to Seattle's Musical Art Society, during which she shared her view that, "education is not an accumulation of facts, but has to do with everyday human experience. It is not the subject studied, but what it does for us that is important. Every subject studied should have a direct bearing on the development and character of good citizenship." As she noted in her speech to the Musical Art Society in 1915, Cornish also believed that the arts entailed a process of "putting into words and in a permanent form an expression of the deepest emotions of which humanity is capable, and music is nothing less."

More than a century after Nellie Cornish founded The Cornish School, the institution continues to provide training in music and art through its most recent incarnation as the Cornish College of the Arts. The college is currently based at 1000 Lenora Street in downtown Seattle's Denny Triangle neighborhood. The Booth Building, which was previously home to The Cornish School, was proposed for recognition as a local historic landmark by the Capitol Hill Historical Society in 2020. The proposal was not approved due to a procedural error, and the historic landmark designation was voted down; however, the Historical Society maintains an interest in preserving the property. The building's current owner, YouthCare and Community Roots Housing, has stated its intention to preserve the Booth Building's historic facade while updating the property.

Armbruster, Kurt E. . Before Seattle Rocked: A City and Its Music. Seattle, WA. University of Washington Press, 2011.

"Booth Building (1906) Landmark Designation", City of Seattle. Accessed June 22nd, 2023. https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/HistoricPreservation/Landmarks/LandmarksPreservationBoard/MeetingDocuments/Booth_Bldg_LPB_Designation_Presentation.pdf.

Caldbick, John. "Nellie Cornish signs lease for space in Seattle's Booth Building, where she will soon open Cornish School of Music, on November 14, 1914", History Link. November 12th, 2014. Accessed June 22nd, 2023. https://www.historylink.org/File/3364.

"Historic Booth Building Denied Landmark Status," Capitol Hill Historical Society . September 21st, 2020. Accessed June 22nd, 2023. https://www.capitolhillpast.org/single-post/historic-booth-building-denied-landmark-status.