Howell Park is a tiny park along Lake Washington in the Madrona neighborhood of Seattle. The park is tucked away in a residential area, and the entire park is roughly the size of a typical suburban house lot, with just 60 or so feet of lakeshore where there is a grassy beach area. Although it is a Seattle city park, Howell Park is not at all well known, and its location is so inconspicuous that anyone not specifically looking for it would be very unlikely to stumble upon it by accident. Perhaps because of this hidden location, the park projects something of a Seattle alternative vibe, attracting a mellow, laid-back group of visitors. Part of the culture of the park is that its beach is unofficially regarded as clothing optional, and hedges and trees on three sides of the beach shield it from view of the nearby houses. While textiles often outnumber nudists, especially on crowded days, nudists usually constitute a substantial minority. On sunny summer weekends, the beach may be packed, and a few dozen visitors makes for a large crowd considering how tiny the beach is. However, most of the time you are likely to encounter a dozen or fewer visitors. While the legality of nudity is ambiguous, cops are generally amicable toward nudists and will only ask nudists to dress if someone lodges a complaint, but Howell Park isn't the type of place where those offended by nudity are likely to be found.

Just up the road from Howell Park, there is another small park called Denny Blaine Park that has a very similar vibe to Howell Park. Nudity is known to sometimes occur at Denny Blaine, although nudity is not nearly as commonplace at Denny Blaine as at Howell. You are more likely to encounter bare breasts or thongs than full nudity. There may be just one or two nude bathers in the crowd at Denny Blaine, or none at all, especially if children are present. The walking distance from one park to the other is just 1/4 mile, and you may end up parking at Denny Blaine anyway since it has a parking lot and Howell does not. It is quite easy to visit both parks since they are so close.

Howell Park and Denny Blaine Park are located in a well-heeled area of Seattle, and Howell Park is wedged between two particularly large lakefront mansions. In 2010, President Obama attended a $10,000-a-plate fundraising lunch at one of those mansions. As you walk or drive along the short span of Lake Washington Boulevard that is between Howell Park and Denny Blaine Park, you will pass yet another small park called Viretta Park, which is on the opposite side of the street from the other two parks (not abutting the lakeshore). Viretta is next to a shingle-sided house with two large dormers, and that house is where Kurt Cobain lived at the time of his death in 1994. Viretta Park has become a pilgrimage site for Cobain fans, and a graffiti-covered park bench serves as an informal memorial to the singer.

Howell Park is about 2.5 miles northeast of Seattle's central business district as the crow flies, or about 4 miles by car. However, getting from downtown to Howell Park can be a bit confusing since there are no roads that go directly from downtown to the lakeshore in the Madrona neighborhood, so whatever route you take is going to involve multiple turns on residential streets. The blue car placemark details what we think is the least complicated driving route from Interstate 5 in the downtown area. If you want to navigate by a GPS device, the street address of Howell Park is 1740 Howell Place, and a backup address is 100 Lake Washington Boulevard East, which is the location of the turnoff onto Howell Place. Both are Seattle addresses in zip code 98122. Do NOT confuse Howell Place with Howell Street. If you input 1740 Howell Street into a GPS device, you will end up at an address that exists but is not where you want to go. Furthermore, if you fail to add "East" to the end of Lake Washington Boulevard, you will also be taken to the incorrect address.

VISUAL RESOURCES

GPS: 47.6175N, 122.2802W

city, county, state, country  Seattle, King, Washington, U.S.A.

classification  2 (traditionally nude)

There are 6 placemarks related to this site.