Hugo House was founded in 1997 by Linda Jaech, Frances McCue, and Andrea Lewis. These three writers believed Seattle needed a center for local writers and readers to find a community and create new work. In 1999, Laura Hirschfield described the nonprofit organization: "Richard Hugo House is a two-year-old literary arts center in Seattle named after the Seattle-born poet and creative writing teacher Richard Hugo who wrote squarely and poignantly about people and places often overlooked."[1]
Several new programs were created at Hugo House during the 2000s by Program Director Brian McGuigan, including Cheap Wine and Poetry (in 2005)[2] Cheap Beer and Prose (in 2008),[3] and the Made at Hugo House fellowship.[4] McGuigan left Hugo House in 2014.
Tree Swenson was the executive director of Hugo House from 2012 to 2020.[5] The current Interim Executive Director is Rob Arnold.
Hugo House first occupied a 16,206-square-foot (1,505.6 m2) Victorian house originally built in 1902. Previous occupants of the building included New City Theater and before that the Bonney-Watson mortuary and funeral home.
In addition to administrative offices, the House included:
an 88/150 theater
a cabaret stage and cafe
three multipurpose rooms
a conference room
an art gallery
private meeting spaces
In June 2016, the organization moved to a temporary space adjacent to the Frye Art MuseumonFirst Hill when the original house on Capitol Hill was razed.[6][7] The property was redeveloped with a six-story mixed-use building which, starting in September 2018, serves as the permanent home for Hugo House.[8][9]
^"The New Hugo House". 2018-01-01. Archived from the original on 2018-08-10. Retrieved 2018-11-13. ...a new and permanent space...on the same ground where we began...
