Roots that grow deep bring folks back to their well-to-do 'hometown'

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Bill Watts was 4 years old the first time he laid eyes on Sally Henry Fiorini and Stephanie Ambrose.

The trio met over cookies and coloring books at Mimi's Preschool, a one-room schoolhouse at Laurelhurst Playfield.

Mimi's is gone, but many of its "graduates" -- including Watts, Fiorini and Ambrose -- still live in Laurelhurst. Forty-two years after they met, the three friends and their spouses get together for coffee, tennis or dinner.

Their lifelong friendship would be unusual if it were not so common among Laurelhurst residents. This is a Seattle neighborhood where well-to-do families bought comfortable homes and set down deep roots.

Their children grew up, got married and in some cases moved back and now are raising a new generation of Laurelhurst kids.

"It really does feel like a small town," admitted Watts, who lives in the same Union Bay waterfront home in which he was raised. "People don't move away."

"A lot of us tried other areas before we realized this one was tough to beat," said Fiorini, whose husband, Jeff, runs Fiorini Sports, a well-known mecca for Northwest skiers.