Austin Americus Bell was the only son of william N. Bell, one of Seattle's founders and a member of the Denny Party that landed at Alki Point on November 13, 1851 on the schooner Exact. His land claim, adjacent to those of the Denny and Boren families, developed into the community of Belltown, which would later be absorbed by Seattle. Austin was born on January 9, 1854 in a log cabin across from the present site of the Bell Building, the second male white child born in the city. The cabin was destroyed in 1856 during The Battle of Seattle. Fed up with the instability of the area, the Bell family removed to California, where they remained for several years.
During his father's illness and subsequent death, Austin began to see signs of similar mental illness in himself, now thought to be Alzheimer's disease. Austin was living and working in Seattle as a printer at the Puget Sound Dispatch when he was severely injured in a fireworks explosion on July 4, 1872. The explosion severely lacerated the lower part of his face, removing all the incisors from his lower jawbone. He had spent most of his life in San Francisco and many years traveling to seek medical treatment to restore his health, while retaining a real estate office in Seattle. Upon returning to Seattle in 1889, he made plans to erect a large brick building on the property he inherited just south of his father's hotel, since renamed the Bellevue House. On April 23, 1889, he took his nephew, william M. Coffman, on a buggy ride to share his plans. The next morning, his demeanor had changed and he was suffering from indigestion. He went to his realty office as usual, locked the door behind him and shot himself in the head. A neighboring merchant heard the shot and rushed across the street to tell a pharmacist that a murder must have occurred. After summoning a Doctor, several men broke down Bell's door to find him dead by his own hand. He was 35. A suicide note to Eva was discovered stating that he did not consider life with poor health worth living and expressed sorrow that he must take this way out.
Following the death of william Bell's wife in 1870, the family moved back to Seattle, now much more built up then when they had left. Austin however remained in San Francisco where he had built up a career in real estate. The value of Bell's property had skyrocketed in the previous years and he proceeded to make improvements to the land. In late 1883, the senior Bell completed his last great project, the four story wooden Bell Hotel at the corner of First and Battery Streets. Suffering from mental illness in his later years, william Bell died September 8, 1887 at the age of 70. He left to Austin a quarter his estate valued at $400,000, which continued to increase in value. Bell soon became one of Seattle's wealthiest citizens.
The Bell Building, along with the adjacent Barnes and Hull buildings, form the nucleus of a development attempt in Belltown in the 1890s that never materialized. Early on, the building earned the moniker of Bell's Folly for being built so far away from the central Business district in the then underdeveloped and economically depressed Belltown neighborhood, named for Bell's father, william Nathaniel Bell, once landowner of the entire north end of Seattle. The area today is considered the heart of Belltown and the Bell building remains one of Belltown's most historic landmarks.
A high parapet extends above the fourth floor and it is composed of a more coarse brick than is the rest of the facade. This is the scar remaining from a large cornice, either made of pressed tin or Terra cotta, that was removed from the building after a 1913 fire, harming its architectural integrity greatly. The pilasters continue through the parapet and the central pilasters and recessed within a brick equilateral arch is a Terra cotta wheel window design flanked at the base by Terra cotta fillets filling out the base of the arch.
The building fell into disrepair throughout most of the 20th century, eventually losing its massive cornice to a fire in 1913. The building was first surveyed in June 1969 and included on the Municipal Art Commission List of Historic Buildings, at which time it was nominated for inclusion on the National Register. It was finally listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1974. It also became a Seattle City Landmark in 1978. The upper floors stayed vacant until the 1990s, sustaining much weather damage in the meantime and later being destroyed by fire. Most of the building was rebuilt behind the main facade in 1997-8 and now houses condominiums with a Starbucks Coffee on the first level.
In 1982, the upper floors were ravaged by a fire, destroying much of what was left of the interior. Developers Cassimar US Inc. and Murray Franklyn Co., working jointly as Austin A. Bell Associates L.L.C., bought the gutted and boarded up building and an adjoining parking area from the Samis Foundation in 1997 for $1,000,000. Under the supervision of Architect Chris Snell, all but the facade and the south wall of the building was demolished and a new 52-unit condominium structure with underground parking and 6,600 square feet (610 m) of Retail space was built in its shell while a new connecting building sympathetic in design to its neighbors was built on the parking lot. The 6 million dollar project was completed by the Spring of 1998. One of the first Retail tenants was the fifth installment of Starbucks Coffee's short-lived concept restaurant, Cafe Starbucks. A regular Starbucks Coffee store currently occupies the entire first floor Retail space.
The interior once featured a central courtyard that spanned the top three floors. It was lighted by a set of three large skylights. The interior finishing and moldings were typical for the time period and much of it was salvaged during the building's reconstruction in 1997.
