By DAVID IGNELL
Legend has it that when Augustus Brown arrived in Juneau in the late 1880s he was on his way to strike it rich in the Klondike gold fields. Perhaps drawn to our majestic surroundings, he bought a downtown lot on the west side of Telephone Hill, overlooking Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island. Brown eventually built a 3-bedroom house there in 1915 and called it home for the next 25 years. He never made it to the gold fields.
Brown passed away in 1949. He left $30,000 for the construction of the indoor swimming pool, completed in 1973, which bears his name today. It sits next to Juneau-Douglas High School. Juneau kids, previously required to take a cold shower before entering the outdoor pool at Evergreen Bowl, were grateful for Brown’s generosity.
Today the 110-year-old house that Brown built on Telephone Hill is still occupied and well maintained. Its current residents have lived there for several years. A simple plaque by the front door proudly identifies their home as the “Augustus Brown House, c. 1915”.
Across narrow Dixon Street (20’ wide) from the Brown House and in the center of Telephone Hill stands the Edward Webster House, built 33 years earlier in 1882. Webster and his father established the first stamp mill in the Juneau Gold Belt. The Webster family owned and operated the Juneau and Douglas Telephone Company from 1893 to 1968, the first commercial telephone service in Alaska.
The current residents of the Webster House have lived there for nearly 40 years. Some locals think the home could be the oldest continuously lived in residence in all of Alaska.
Forty years ago, a Historical Site and Structures Survey by the State’s Archives and Resource and Records Management agency found the Webster House had “major historical significance”. Yet now, the Juneau Assembly wants to bulldoze it to the ground along with the Brown House, along with five other houses mostly over 100 years old, and one lilac tree of the same vintage.
The staggering cost to Juneau taxpayers for scraping historical Telephone Hill clean will be $9 million, according to the city’s estimate. Fiscally conservative local contractor Wayne Coogan believes the estimate may be too low. Coogan attributes the high demolition cost to regulations and procedures governing the disposal of encapsulated asbestos, PCVs, lead, and potential fuel tank contamination.
Coogan would like to see the Assembly reconsider their vote and let the free market decide what to do with Telephone Hill.
In 2023, the city became the owner of the Brown and Webster houses, along with five other historic houses situated on Telephone Hill. The city and borough government received title from the State of Alaska, which had acquired the homes in 1984 under threat of eminent domain for an intended new Capitol building expansion, which eventually fizzled out.
The homes are occupied by tenants who, since 2023, have made out their rent checks to the City and Borough of Juneau instead of the State. Some of the houses are multi-family. Altogether, 10 families would be displaced if Telephone Hill was bulldozed.
It could take years before replacement housing is built. Leland Consulting Group, hired two years ago by the city to identify developers who can deliver the desired product, has come up empty. Their inability to locate a developer should tell the Assembly something, but apparently that message is falling on deaf ears.
In June, the Assembly voted 7-1 to move forward with their Telephone Hill redevelopment plan, despite fierce opposition from Juneau residents. Under the Assembly’s direction, the tenants were given eviction notices requiring them to vacate their homes by Oct. 1. Demolition is expected to commence shortly thereafter.
CBJ’s redevelopment plan is the product of First Forty Feet (“FFF”), an urban design and planning firm based in Portland, Ore. In July of 2024, FFF issued a draft Guide presenting four preliminary design concepts. Concept “C” called for the demolition of the seven historical houses followed by construction of five new mid-rise buildings containing 150 units. Concept “D” called for the retention of the seven historical buildings and the building of four new buildings containing 36 additional units.
An online survey conducted by FFF indicated that Concept C was slightly favored by participants over Concept D by a mere 13 votes. However, the legitimacy of that survey has been challenged by Juneau residents on at least two grounds.
First, the survey did not include an option to vote for no development and to leave Telephone Hill as it is. Second, the survey was conducted from mid-December to early January, when many residents were traveling or preoccupied with holiday planning and events.
Subsequent public outcry over the Assembly’s choices suggests that a neutral and more fairly administrated survey would have resulted in an overwhelming rejection of CBJ’s plan.
On Aug. 16, a group of liberal and conservative minded citizens gathered for a protest rally starting at Marine Park on the Juneau waterfront. Carrying signs like “Don’t Kill Telephone Hill” and “Save the Hill” a group of at least 75 protesters peacefully marched to the top of Telephone Hill.
One of the protestors I spoke with is a conservative — Bob Jacobsen, the founder of Wings Airways, a local glacier flightseeing operator that operates principally out of downtown Juneau. On the issue of the Assembly’s demolition plans, Jacobsen told me he hasn’t talked to a single local who supports CBJ spending the $9 million to evict the current residents and remove the 10 units from our tight housing supply.
On the issue of the Assembly’s non-responsiveness to locals, Jacobsen said: “I regret being apathetic on this issue and not getting involved sooner. This could turn out to be a huge mistake that the Assembly and all of us will regret in the years to come. Let’s let the free market decide what happens with Telephone Hill. I’ve built a few things in Juneau. If multi-family is built on Telephone Hill, it will become the most expensive housing in the Borough.”
One of the organizers of the protest rally was Susan Clark, a gracious, friendly, energetic, and intelligent woman who has been a registered member of the Democrat Party for 55 years. Clark met me at the site an hour before the rally started to give me a personal tour.
The first area Clark showed me was a 100-year-old cherry orchard along the steep, rugged hillside below the Bosch-Carrigan House, built in 1913. This home was identified in the1984 State Survey as having “major architectural value.”
I had met Clark just a few days earlier when she came to a weekly breakfast meeting attended by conservative business owners in Juneau. Clark was there to request the group’s help in reversing the Assembly’s decision to kill Telegraph Hill. At the meeting Clark voiced her frustration and exasperation at the Assembly’s unwillingness to listen to Juneau voters, especially those who live downtown.
A lone liberal amidst a conservative crowd, Clark found common ground and open arms. After the meeting, I spotted Clark sharing a warm hug with long time Juneau conservative Jim Wilcox who often attends meetings wearing a red MAGA cap. In 2023, Wilcox and his wife Cecilia received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Juneau Chamber of Commerce for “decades of giving and volunteerism.”
Clark believes the Plan “C” and its 150 units that the Assembly has chosen is basically pie in the sky. She calculates that after the planned demolition the net buildable area of the site will be about 1.1 acres. If a traditional multi-family apartment building with at least 54 units is built, Clark calculates the net buildable area may be only .80 acres because Dixon Street would have to be widened from the current 20’ to 50’.
Clark is concerned that the Assembly and their planners have not taken site stability into account. She and her husband Jim wrote a letter to the Assembly stating neither the public nor CBJ have any idea regarding the competency of the rock and the depth from regolith to bedrock. As such, it is unknown whether the hill can support the weight of the 5-story and two 4 story buildings called for under Plan “C.”
In other words, the option of 150 new units the Assembly has shoved down the public’s throat may turn out to be a pipe dream after CBJ wastes $9 million in taxpayer dollars to demolish historic homes.
A few days after my tour with Clark, I visited the site with Coogan and Wilcox. Both men expressed concerns about site stability. Wilcox pointed to cracks in the rock face and large chunks that had fallen off. When I asked Coogan how far the proposed buildings would have to be setback from the cliff face, he replied, “that’s a good question.”
FFF’s Guide shows the new buildings going right up to the edge of the sheer rock face that was formed by prior blasting and appears unstable. The splashy 56-page Guide contains the results of a structural conditions survey and a Phase I environmental survey but is silent on the stability issue.
Clark gave me a copy of the Guide where she had underlined portions of the Site Grading section which states “Its rugged terrain poses both challenges and opportunities for development, with its slopes requiring innovative engineering”.
Innovative engineering required? Perhaps that is one of reasons why Leland Consulting has been unable to locate a developer.
Clark agrees with Coogan and Jacobsen: Let the free market decide what is to be done with Telephone Hill. She believes the city should engage a real estate broker to list the properties for sale.
I also agree. The broker’s marketing plan should expose the houses to the billionaires who bring their boats to Juneau every summer and philanthropists from around the country. With the input of the community to guide them, the Assembly could explore putting restrictive covenants or conditions on the deeds to protect the houses with the most historical value.
Just like Augustus Brown made a positive lasting impression on Juneau, other philanthropists may become enticed by Juneau’s natural beauty and jump at the chance to own, restore, and preserve these unique historical homes for future generations. The rich and famous who have homes scattered around the world like having local caretakers; some of the current tenants might be a perfect match.
The Assembly and its consultants have created and promoted the narrative that high density housing on Telephone Hill is needed given Juneau’s current shortfall of homes. Juneau certainly needs more housing, but Telephone Hill is far less viable than other options Juneau has.
For starters, CBJ owns 3,400 acres between Outer Point and Point Hilda on North Douglas. Several years ago, the city put in a 2.5-mile road to help effectuate plans to build 2,000 new residential units there. These would be homes with yards and safe streets that families could raise kids on -– not cramped midrise units in a noisy neighborhood with limited parking, surrounded by tourists during the day and the homeless at night.
Goldbelt Corporation owns and is in the process of developing an adjacent 1800 acres on North Douglas and would like to have access to their property from the CBJ road. Goldbelt plans to build a wastewater treatment plant there. There could be a lot of synergy between the two projects that could solve Juneau’s housing needs well into the future if the Assembly cared to focus on that.
But they don’t. Instead, the Assembly is fixated on bulldozing historical homes and wasting more taxpayer dollars on what appears to be a very speculative development scheme. The Assembly can’t even manage to put in a gondola at Eaglecrest they purchased in Europe a few years ago. The equipment sits on the ground, rusting away, while Eaglecrest’s operating losses accelerate.
The organizers of the Aug. 16 Telephone Hill rally are gearing up for another one on Sept. 22, the date of the next Assembly meeting and the last one before the scheduled evictions. However, they plan on widening their protest to what they’ve identified as “broader issues of collusion and co-opting within our local government by outside interests, not just Telephone Hill.”
The protesters have their eyes focused on Assembly members seeking re-election. Of the three open seats, only one is contested. The protesters may want to consider a write-in campaign and/or signal an intention to mount a recall petition if the Assembly goes forward with their reckless plan.
FFF’s slogan is “a better city exists.” Perhaps unified Juneau voters will apply a similar rationale and adopt the slogan “a better Assembly exists.”
The unification of liberals and conservatives on Telephone Hill could have wide ranging impacts that reverse Juneau’s decline and make our community affordable, healthy and vibrant again.
Susan Clark, thank you for reaching out across the aisle and your tireless work in helping to unite Juneau.
David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau where he currently resides. He formerly practiced law in California state and federal courts and was a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project. He is currently a forensic journalist and recently wrote a book on the Alaska Grand Jury.
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