Ballard's Edith Macefield lives on ... in a new BBC Radio drama

May 15, 2019 / 11:34 am

caption: Outside Edith Macefield's former house, also known as the 'Up' house. People have associated the house with the Pixar movie 'Up,' which follows a similar narrative of an elderly man who refuses to sell his house to developers.

You may recall Edith Macefield, the Seattle woman who defied a developer and refused to sell her small house in Ballard.

So the developer built a huge office and shopping center that nearly surrounded her home.

Now a BBC Radio play takes a fictional look at that story:

A clip from the BBC Radio play "The Macefield Plot."

Barry: Miss Macefield?

Edith: Who's that?

Barry: It's Barry.

Edith: Who?

Barry: From the construction site, I did knock.

Edith: I've got music on.

Barry: Right ... the police are here.

Edith: What do they want?

Barry: To know if you're OK.

Edith: Tell them to get the HELL out of here.

Barry: Well, they're going to have to come in ...

Edith: Are you DEAF?

You can find the full BBC Radio play here.

Macefield died in 2008 and left the house to Barry Martin, the superintendent of the construction project, because of his friendship toward her.

The house has changed hands a couple of times since then. An attempt to move it to the San Juan Islands for low-cost housing fell through.

It was used to promote the popular 2009 animated movie “Up,” in which an elderly man refuses to sell a similarly situated house and attaches balloons to it to float away.

A Ballard music festival was named after Macefield, and she’s been the subject of a podcast as well.

And the house? It’s still there, surrounded, at 1438 N.W.46th St.

The video below was taken in 2015 while a deal for the housing nonprofit was in the works.

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Gil Aegerter
Gil edits feature pieces and helps guide staff reporters through their stories. He previously served as interim digital director and online managing editor at KUOW. Before that he spent seven years with NBCNews.com, where he was variously a senior editor, editor-producer and features editor. He also worked 25 years as a newspaper editor in Anchorage, Alaska, San Diego, Wilmington, N.C., and Seattle. He also was a freelance researcher for NBC Olympics for the Games in Atlanta; Sydney, Australia; Salt Lake City; Athens; and Torino, Italy. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, with a degree in photojournalism.
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