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Harry Whitney Treat was born in Monroe, Wisconsin on December 13, 1865. His parents were descended from a direct line of English settlers and Harry Treat was an avid, lifelong Anglophile. After attending Cornell University and Harvard Law School, he worked for Marshall Field Department Store before establishing his own real estate firm, Helliwell and Treat. In 1896, he married Olive Marion Graef, the daughter of Charles Graef, a wealthy champagne importer.

Harry and Olive Treat traveled on business to Europe in 1903 and 1904 with their first child Priscilla. In 1906, the family moved to Seattle where Treat established the Pacific Trust Company, specializing in real estate development. Their second daughter Loyal was born in Seattle, and the Loyal Heights residential neighborhood was named after her. Within a few years, Harry Treat was a millionaire and became a colorful high society figure in Seattle. He and Olive sponsored lavish charity benefits and outdoor social events. The Treats had a flair for the theatrical and their Queen Anne mansion and Loyal Heights farm were filled with vintage English coaches, period costumes, hunting dogs and purebred English Hackney horses.

Shortly after arriving in Seattle, Harry Treat began purchasing hundreds of acres of forested land in the northern part of the city, including a long stretch of pristine waterfront. He acquired this real estate at a time when most speculators were concentrating on the empty tide flats south of downtown. The Ballard area was impoverished and lacked public transportation, so the potential for residential development was overlooked. To remedy this problem, Harry Treat established an electric trolley line called the Loyal Railway and used it promote the suburbs of Ballard, Loyal Heights and Loyal Beach. He also created a magnificent waterfront park accessible by trolley called Golden Gardens, which his family later donated to the City of Seattle. The logging baron Frederick Stimson acquired the northeast portion of Harry Treat’s new Loyal Heights neighborhood and planned The Highlands, a luxury development with five-acre home sites arranged around a golf course.

Harry Treat was active in Seattle civic affairs until his sudden death at age 57. He was the president of the Washington State Arts Association, Seattle Tennis Club, and Seattle Horseshow Association, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. On July 30, 1922, he died in an automobile accident near Chilliwack, Canada. After the marriage of her daughters Priscilla and Loyal, Olive Treat lived in the Olympic Hotel until her death in 1945 at the age of 76. She was a member of the first board of the Orthopedic Hospital.