Yes, They Lived in the Trees.
No, This Isn’t a Joke.
If you started selling real estate on Queen Anne in the 1980s — like I did — you remember this:
Bigelow Avenue North, one of the most beautiful, historic, million-dollar tree-lined streets in Seattle… had wild chickens living in the damn trees.
Not backyard chickens.
Not pets.
Actual renegade roosters who decided Queen Anne belonged to them.
Buyers would step onto Bigelow expecting quiet elegance and Victorian charm —
and instead hear a rooster crowing from 30 feet up like it owned the deed.
And honestly?
It kind of did.
Back then, Queen Anne wasn’t just the crown of Seattle —
it was a full ecosystem:
• Joggers,
• Old-money porches,
• Historic mansions,
• And a flock of feathered anarchists screaming at sunrise.
They perched in those massive trees from Bigelow through Wheeler, winding all the way to 7th West and Highland Drive — the iconic loop known as the Crown of Queen Anne, where Seattle’s founding families built their homes in the 1880s.
New buyers would ask me:
“Is that normal?”
And I’d just nod like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Queen Anne’s always been a little wild.
Some things you can’t stage.
Some things you can’t market.
Some things you just have to live through.
And if you never heard those roosters?
You missed a chapter.
Want the real Seattle tour? The one that’s not in any guidebooks?
Call or email me — I’ll show you:
• The legitimately haunted homes (yes, I’ve sold them… yes, things happened)
• The scandalous addresses everyone whispers about
• Where the four-legged cougars roam in Magnolia
• The movie locations I’ve represented — Sleepless in Seattle, Hand That Rocks the Cradle, J-Lo’s rental, and more
• And all the Seattle stories only a 40-year broker could tell
Seattle isn’t just a city — it’s a novel.
And some chapters still scream from the trees.
