Beaux Arts Village

Beaux Arts Village is a small incorporated town on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, surrounded on three sides by the city of Bellevue and bounded on the west by the lake, just north of Interstate 90. Though independent, it is fully embedded within Bellevue and functions as one of its lakeside enclaves.

The community began in 1908 when members of the Western Academy of Beaux Arts, an art society including Frank Calvert, Alfred Renfro, and Finn Frolich, purchased a 50-acre tract of forest land intending to build an artists' colony. The colony vision never fully materialized, but the name and a tight-knit village character endured.

To protect its beach and village lifestyle from annexation by the expanding city of Bellevue, residents incorporated as a town in 1954 with about 304 residents. It remains one of the smallest municipalities in western Washington, with a population of 299 in 2010 and 317 in 2020.