The Illahee Apartment complex overlooking downtown Astoria was voted Best Apartment Complex in the 2017 Readers' Choice contest.

Runner-up: Gearhart by the Sea, Gearhart

Honorable mention: Sunset Surf Apartments, Seaside

When he was 9 years old and spending the summer in the Astoria area, Sean Fitzpatrick fell in love with the Illahee Apartments. He thought the buildings’ faces — a series of sharp, marching edges that look like a collection of enormous “E”s and “F”s — were the coolest things he had ever seen.

He told his aunt, “I’m going to own it someday.”

She said, “That’s ridiculous.”

In 1990, now an adult, he moved to Astoria briefly and saw the apartments again. They weren’t as cool as he remembered. When he moved back to Astoria in 2000, he once again looked at the apartments. They were cool again.

Fitzpatrick and his wife, Anne, purchased the complex in 2004 and have managed the apartments ever since.

The Illahee Apartments first opened in 1969 and cover an entire city block. They rest on Astoria’s north hillside right above the downtown core. The complex contains 35 units, a mix of two- and one-bedroom apartments. One-bedroom units start at $1,100 a month; two-bedroom units at $1,250.

Over the years the demographic of the residents has changed, Fitzpatrick said. When the couple first took over the buildings, it was primarily seniors who lived there. Fitzpatrick was told that when the buildings were built they were intended for seniors and, in particular, the widows of men who worked in Astoria’s traditional but dangerous logging and fishing industries.

“It was a tradition, but it was never a law,” Fitzpatrick said.

Older and young people now fill the apartments. Sean and Anne Fitzpatrick also live there and they love it, in large part because they get to walk everywhere.

“It’s a really great community of people here,” Sean Fitzpatrick said. “I’m very proud of what we have here.”