A Room with a View

After a tragic fire destroyed one family’s 100-year-old vacation home, the new structure needed to combine tradition and innovation.

House fires can be devastating. After a historic vacation home on Bainbridge Island, Washington, burned down, the family decided to rebuild on the same site.

“There was a lot of identification with the old house,” says architect Steve Hoedemaker of Hoedemaker Pfeiffer.

“We tried to capture the things that had emotionally resonated with the old building, and then carry them into the new building.”

NEW APPROACH

One of the most striking aspects of the property is the view. “The house has incredible views in every direction; you can see Seattle, Mount Rainier and, of course, the ocean,” Steve says. In order to make the most of the

landscape, one goal: getting he decided as much to center natural his light design into around the house as possible. To achieve this goal, Steve designed the house as three connected pavilions. “Rather than having one big building, we broke it down into pavilions, connected by smaller roof forms,” he says. “If you put everything together in one big box, you have fewer opportunities for light.” This means that many of the rooms have windows in two or three walls, not just one, which both allows light in and connects the home to the view. “The building becomes a tool for

connecting to nature,” Steve says. Structurally, this meant more exterior walls than usual. “Given a certain amount of square footage, we’ve created twice the normal number of exterior walls,” he says.

OLD STYLE

While the structural approach is innovative, Steve made sure to keep the classic-cottage look the family loved from their previous home. He used split-shake siding on the home in a darker color that will weather well over the years. “Shakes have a natural split; they’re very stable and last a long time,” he says.

He also made sure there was plenty of opportunity to get outside, by placing doors and small porches on both sides of the home in addition to the main front door. “That’s the difference between a vacation home and a city home,” Steve says. “When people are there, all the doors are unlocked, and there are things to do in every direction. We connected with the idea that you can come and go in multiple directions.”

“The building becomes a tool for connecting to nature .”