A native Londoner with an engineering background in failure analysis of airplane crashes turned a century-old, three-story log building near Beach Drive into a large modern home with heated floors and wireless Internet connections.

Chris Wain was trained in Britain as a mechanical engineer. In the United States he's considered a structural engineer.

"Here, all mechanical engineers ever seem to work on is heating ducts," he said.

His knowledge and investment helped save Seaview Hall, which was built in 1904 as a five-bedroom hotel, back when Alki was considered by Seattleites as a weekend getaway.

Seaview Hall stands a block east of Beach Drive at Andover Street. Its front porch and second-floor balcony are as wide as the building.

Wain recently completed an 18-month remodeling job on the building, which is for sale for $1.8 million.

One of the first tasks was to realign and straighten the log walls. They'd taken on a universal tilt toward the southwest corner of the structure.

Wain designed a cable and turnbuckle system that was anchored to the hillside behind Seaview Hall. Bit by bit, with plaster occasionally cracking here and there, workers straightened the entire building and reinforced it with cross ties, metal straps and other structural supports.

Beams on the second floor were salvaged years ago from a decommissioned ship. A new 36-foot-long laminated beam was installed to add strength to the structure.

The building's original owner was a man named Percy Rochfort. A later owner was imprisoned during Prohibition for bootlegging. He smuggled homemade alcohol by boat from an illegal distillery on Blake Island to Seattle.

By 1959, the building had deteriorated to the point of condemnation. Then it was purchased and repaired by the Ross family. They lived in it for 46 years before selling it to Wain in 2005.

The logs are Douglas fir and silver fir. Those that weren't harvested in West Seattle were salvaged from the beach, Wain said.

While most log structures in West Seattle were built the traditional way with the logs laid horizontally, Seaview Hall is distinguished by its vertical log walls. That was a construction style more commonly found in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.

Over the years, Seaview Hall's vertical log walls began to tilt toward the southwest corner of the building. It was necessary to square up the structure before remodeling could begin.

"The second floor flexed 6 inches," Wain said.

The logs on the south wall were black from being treated with creosote, the tar-like substance used to preserve wooden pilings. The logs were sandblasted and Wain discovered the creosote had penetrated only about one-sixteenth of an inch into the logs.

A garage was added to the north side of Seaview Hall in the 1930s. Though its exterior still looks like a garage, the interior was converted into a TV room during the recent remodeling.

The remodeled Seaview Hall has four bedrooms.

The plumbing was completely replaced with a nine-zone water system designed by Wain. Hot-water tubes heat the decorated concrete ground floor as well as the bathroom floors. Even the towel bars stay warm. There's a glass, two-person shower stall too.

There's also a washer and drier on each floor.

Lighting fixtures from the 1904 era - some salvaged, others reproduced - remind visitors of the old days. Susan Shorett, a real estate agent who worked on the renovation project, was in charge of interior design. She spent hours looking for double-pane windows, lighting fixtures and other items that fit Seaview Hall's vintage. Internet and cable wiring is hidden.

There were also some uniquely local features that were saved, such as the banister of bent rhododendron wood leading to the second floor.

The building's fireplaces were rebuilt. The ground-floor fireplace has a hearth of rounded granite river rocks.

The old-growth fir flooring on the second and third stories was stripped and restored.

Besides ownership, Wain hopes Seaview Hall's next owner will also be its steward through the next chapter of its history.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.