A hidden Tacoma mansion has hit the market. It was once home to a famous race car driver

From the street, you don’t even know it’s there. Hidden behind a wall of hedges, it’s not until you pass through the gated entrance and walk underneath a lush, green tunnel that’s carved through the foliage — covering an otherwise nondescript driveway — that you begin to appreciate the history you’ve stumbled upon.

It was here, Wednesday morning, where I met 53-year-old David Blackburn, who has owned the 5,000 square-feet estate at 4125 North Mason Avenue in Tacoma since 2013. Originally built in 1929 for early Tacoma furniture magnate Edwin Gregory, in the 1970s it was purchased by renowned race car driver and local businessman Pete Lovely, who owned the home until his death in 2011.

Wearing Vans and a mess of black hair, Blackburn — who grew up in West Seattle and now runs a lifestyle clothing and home furnishing brand — told me he fell in love with the historic property because of the inspiration it provided.

Blackburn designed clothes and operated a storefront in Seattle in the early 1990s; He told me Mike D of the Beastie Boys wore one of his t-shirts on the cover of Vox magazine and in the group’s “Sure Shot” video. Over 30-plus years, he’s maintained friendships with many of the local creative types he’s met along the way; Matt Lukin, the retired bassist and founding member of the Melvins and Mudhoney, is his carpenter.

Since buying his North Mason home a decade ago for roughly $1.4 million, Blackburn — who operates his clothing and furnishing business out of the 12-car garage Lovely had constructed on the property — said the century-old estate, which features Italian architecture but gives off “Exile on Main Street” vibes, has served as both a muse and a passion project.

Last week, the home and the eight-tenths of an acre property that surrounds it was put on the market.

Blackburn’s asking price: $3.45 million.

“We’ve had a lot of creative projects here, and this house has afforded us that opportunity. We’ve had art exhibitions and we’ve done fashion shoots here. We’ve shot album covers,” said Blackburn, taking off a pair of black sunglasses made from recycled vinyl records.

“Just visually, it’s been a special place to be able to act out ideas,” he continued. “ It has 41 windows; I became a better photographer after living in this house, watching the light come through.”

Famous owners

Blackburn isn’t the first person to fall in love with the home he’s now attempting to sell, or the piece of land it was built on.

A stone’s throw from Haddaway Hall on North Stevens — which most know today as the Weyerhaeuser mansion — Blackburn says a pool in the backyard was once home to the Whitworth College women’s aquatic center, even before Gregory, who built a furniture empire in Tacoma, decided to construct his large estate on the property overlooking Puget Sound.

By the mid-1920s, the Gregory Furniture Manufacturing Company was one of the largest furniture makers in the country. Thanks in part to the region’s ample timber, in 1927 The News Tribune credited Gregory, whose company employed nearly 200 people with an annual profit of close to $1 million, with turning Tacoma into the “furniture center of the West.”

Given his success, it was perhaps only natural for Gregory to desire a home befitting his stature in Tacoma high society. So he hired a team of prominent local architects — including Frederick Heath, the man responsible for Stadium and Lincoln high schools as well as the Paradise Inn at Mount Rainier — to build his North Mason home, which was completed in 1929.

“In the 20s, Heath, Gove and Bell were the premiere architects in town. If you were anybody, they’re who you hired,” said local historian Michael Sullivan. “Gregory was really the first guy to get into the mass production of furniture in a big way. At one point, Tacoma was the second biggest furniture manufacturer in the country, and he was a major player in all that.”

Gregory, according to Sullivan, was “a bit of an irascible character” whose business was “hit hard” by the ensuing Great Depression.

In 1937 he died unexpectedly at the home at the age of 74. But roughly 30 years later, a new prominent local owner — Lovely, who made a name for himself in auto racing and owned a successful Volkswagen dealership in Fife — purchased the property, calling it home for the next four decades.

Originally from Montana, Lovely’s career in racing spanned 50 years, including a dozen Formula One starts. According to The News Tribune archives, Lovely, who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aviation mechanic and briefly worked for Boeing, installed a Porsche engine in a Cooper sports car in 1955, nicknamed it the “Pooper” and drove it to a national championship in the Sports Car Club of America. Lovely was also behind the wheel of car owner Jack Nethercutt’s Ferrari when he placed third at the L.A. Examiner Grand Prix in 1960, and the same year finished third in the 12 Hours of Sebring sports car race in Florida.

Today, the property still boasts many of the small (and big) touches that Lovely and his family added along the way. The 12-car garage was built without a center post, allowing him better access to the cars he was constantly working on, while one of the bathrooms is covered in palm tree wallpaper, chosen by his wife.

Mostly, however, the five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom estate looks much the way it did the day Gregory moved in — down to the light fixtures, Italian tile and stunning, wood-covered entryway.

That’s the way Lovely maintained it over the years, and Blackburn has sought to do the same, he said.

“I was blown away when I saw it,” said Blackburn, who said he’s worked to preserve its charm and historic character. “The first time I drove up I was like, ‘What the heck is this place? Is this a hotel? Is this real? Because I’ve never been here before.’”

Looking for a unique buyer

Tacoma’s opulent and historically significant homes don’t always hit the market, but when they do, there’s a decent chance that local real estate listing broker Michael Morrison is involved.

Morrison — who specializes in selling high-end homes, with an average closing price of roughly $1.3 million — recently helped to list the Rust Mansion. Now, he’s working with Blackburn trying to find a buyer for the property at 4125 North Mason.

According to Morrison, who said he’s attracted to “unique homes with backstories to them,” the ideal buyer will be someone who appreciates history and desires privacy. The massive garage also offers at-home business opportunities, he said, much the way Blackburn has used it for his clothing and home furnishing line.

Over the last year, the home has been on the market twice before, Morrison said, but this is the first time that the three parcels that make up the estate have been offered together.

“What we’re looking for is probably an entrepreneur, or a business person or a car collector, somebody who’s going to appreciate a big show garage with roll-up glass doors, or somebody who wants to use that garage for part of their business,” said Morrison, indicating that early interest in the new listing has been encouraging. “It also has to be someone who loves old houses. You have to be a steward. If you’re looking for new construction, this isn’t it.”

On Wednesday, from a second-story window overlooking the water, Blackburn told me he’s just hoping to find a buyer who loves the place as much as he does.

He’s grateful for the memories the house and property have provided his family, and eager to hand over the keys to someone intrigued by the many stories it has to offer.

“The first thing that attracted me to the property is that it was in a pretty original, unmolested condition. There was some maintenance that was left for the next guy, but that was it, and that was fine. I thought it’d be a fun project to live in and restore at the same time, sort of like a big old boat,” Blackburn said.

“I’m hoping to find someone who appreciates the history of the house and the people who have lived here,” he continued.

“It’s been a real special place for us.”