By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The history of Laurelhurst shows it has long been prized land. In 1900, about 50 men of wealth went together to buy some 54 acres near 51st Avenue Northeast. The land became the Seattle Golf Club, said Christine Barrett, who spent several years researching and writing the book "A History of Laurelhurst." In 1913, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, led by Frances Cabrini, moved their orphanage from Beacon Hill to a tract of raw hilltop land in Laurelhurst. The land reportedly sold for $60,000. Today, the 21 acres are assessed at $14.7 million.

The orphanage has been converted to Villa Academy, a private school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students, many of whom come from the surrounding neighborhood. Its enrollment hovers around 490 students.

Tuition for kindergarten through fifth grade is $5,825 a year. It rises to $6,125 for upper grades. Though affiliated with the Catholic Church, the school is not associated with a parish and has no teachers who are nuns.

The Missionary Sisters still maintain a convent next to the school. Sister Mary "B" Berchmans Peretti is one of 10 nuns who reside there. The convent is slowly dwindling as the sisters grow older. Two nuns passed away this year.

Born in Cle Elum, Sister Peretti said she attended the school from 1924 to1930. Back then, there were no houses near the school. "We were in the wilderness," she said. The children never went to town, though on occasion two sisters went in by horse and buggy to shop.

There was also a fleet of small boats bringing passengers to Laurelhurst from a dock at the foot of Madison Street, which was served by a street car, according to Barrett, the amateur historian.

By 1906, a few years before the nuns arrived, Webster Point and the upper peninsula had attracted a trio of developers -- Joseph McLaughlin, Paul Murphy and Frank Mead. They bought the golf course and more than 100 more acres from several parties, including William "Uncle Joe" Surber, Seattle's first police chief.

McLaughlin, Murphy and Mead immediately set about marketing "Laurelhurst" and "Laurelhurst Heights," the golf course property. Lots were sold for as little as $1,000, according to Barrett.

In the ensuing decades, Laurelhurst has grown into a mature neighborhood and aged "remarkably well," said Dan Evans. The former senator's family moved to Laurelhurst in 1931, the year he started first grade at Laurelhurst Elementary School.

He and his wife, Nancy, recently moved back and built a new home near Northeast 45th Street and Laurel Drive Northeast.

Evans said he revisited the elementary school where he had started out 60 years ago. Though some things had not changed, Evans was fascinated by the wonderful ethnic diversity of the students, a number of whom had immigrated from other countries.

Evans said he couldn't remember any kids of color at the school when he was a kid. Of course, back then it was a different time. University Village property was a truck farm for Japanese and Italian farmers.

The farmers would drive through Laurelhurst in old trucks with long black canvas sides, Evans said. "They would stop and honk and all the housewives would come out, and it was a replica of what you see today at Pike Place Market with all the vegetables nicely displayed." Now, Laurelhurst residents shop at the Safeway, Albertson's or the new QFC that opened in August with amenities such as a fireplace, Starbucks, Cinnabon bakery and in-store child care center.

Laurelhurst has come a long way, but it is still a "bricks and mortar" kind of neighborhood, said Joan Broughton, who grew up there, raised a family, moved away and, like many others, came back.

"There's a lot of people who have lived in the area for a long time," Broughton said, "but that is true of a lot of great neighborhoods."