His father, Granville O. Haller, was one of Seattle's early settlers, an army officer who amassed a large estate in the region.

The lake was formed as a result of a block of ice left behind by a retreating glacier.

It covers 15 acres (6.1 ha); its volume is 247 acre⋅ft (305,000 cubic metres) and its maximum depth is 36 feet (11 m).

[4] The boundaries of the neighborhood are N. 145th Street to the north, beyond which is the city of Shoreline; N. Northgate Way to the south, beyond which is Licton Springs; State Route 99 (Aurora Avenue) to the west, beyond which is Bitter Lake; and Interstate 5 to the east, beyond which is Jackson Park.

; Ingraham High School, north of the lake on N. 130th Street; Lakeside School, alma mater of Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, actor Adam West, and former Washington Governor Booth Gardner, in the northeast corner of the neighborhood; and Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, which occupies a 33-acre (13 ha) campus southwest of the lake on N. 115th Street.