By TOM PAULSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Blue Ridge originally had a racial exclusion clause in its covenant:

"No person other than one of the White or Caucasian race shall be permitted to occupy any property . . . except a domestic servant actually employed by a person of the White or Caucasian race where the latter is an occupant of such property."

The clause, rendered unenforceable by a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court case and removed from the Blue Ridge social club rules soon thereafter, remained in the title language until the late 1980s.

Attorney Doug Dunham, who discovered it when he served on the community board, launched an effort to get every property owner to sign a petition legally removing it from the title language.

"Most were surprised to learn it was still in there," Dunham says. Nearly all residents signed the petition to remove the "embarrassing" language, he says, a laborious voluntary effort that took a year.

But today, even without any discriminatory barriers, Blue Ridge remains almost completely an upper-middle class white neighborhood.

There are a few Hispanic and Asian families in Blue Ridge, but the only African Americans are adopted children, said Dave Taylor, current president of the community club.