Edith Macefield was offered $1 million to sell her house in 2006. She said no, so the five-story building going up around her got built around her instead.
Macefield had lived in the small farmhouse at 1438 NW 46th Street in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood since 1952, when she bought it from her mother. The house itself dated back to 1900. By the time a developer came calling in 2006, she was 84 years old and had no interest in moving out of her hundred-year-old home, according to a 2006 Seattle Times report.
The developer’s first offer was worth roughly $750,000 and included a new, wheelchair-accessible home built elsewhere, plus coverage of her healthcare costs for life. When she still turned it down, the offer grew to $1 million, according to HistoryLink.org, a Washington state history nonprofit. Macefield wasn’t moved by the number either way…