Hawthorne Hills is an affluent residential neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. It is included on the City's Atlas as part of Windermere, but is generally recognized as a distinct neighborhood with its own Community Council [1]. According to a 2013 analysis by Seattle Met Magazine and Zillow of 101 Seattle neighborhoods, Hawthorne Hills has the second-highest median household income of any Seattle neighborhood ($111,671, behind only Laurelhurst), and ranks 6th of 98 in median home value [2]. This analysis also indicated that Hawthorne Hills had the lowest crime rate of all 101 Seattle neighborhoods.
As with all Seattle neighborhoods, Hawthorne Hills has no officially-defined boundaries. The northern boundary is consistently recognized as Northeast 65th Street. The southern and western boundary, however, is variously recognized as either the Burke-Gilman Trail or Sand Point Way. The eastern boundary is variously recognized as either 45th or 40th Avenue Northeast.[3]
Many streets in the neighborhood run against the standard north-south/west-east Seattle grid and are named after college towns (e.g., Stanford, Princeton, Purdue, etc.) University Circle Park, which has views to Downtown Seattle and the Space Needle, is at the center of these streets. The southern part of Hawthorne Hills includes a portion of the Burke-Gilman Trail, including the Burke-Gilman Place Playground area. Hawthorne Hills is located about two miles east of the University District, and serves as a bedroom community for many University of Washington professors and staffers.
Hawthorne Hills is bounded on the north by View Ridge, on the east by Windermere, on the south by Laurelhurst, and on the west by Bryant.