Homes & Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods by the Numbers

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:31:00 -0700

Check back at the beginning of April to access our brand-new interactive listings of Portland’s neighborhoods and suburbs.

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Portland's Hottest Microhoods

A look inside Portland's hottest nano-size neighborhoods and the trends driving our real estate market.

Image: Stuart Mullenberg

Portland's Current Market Trends

The major movements within Portland's real estate market, from cash purchases to sustainable mixed-use developments.

Rental Market Madness

If you're frustrated by trying to find a place in today's rental market, you're not alone.

Approved residential permit data provided by Construction Monitor. Maps built by Metro's Data Resource Center.

Real Estate Growth Map

Portland's residential development over the past three years.

Our 10 Greatest Homes

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:30:00 -0700

Almost entirely self-taught as an architect, John Yeon completed his first house at age 27 for the lumber baron Aubrey Watzek. It became an instant classic and soon was published about widely and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art as a regional interpretation of the then-burgeoning movement of modernism.

Image: Yeon Center, University of Oregon

Given Portland’s sheer volume of fabulous historic homes—plus the quantity of fine architects working today—asking five experts to pick the 10 greatest residences in the city’s history might have sounded the bell for an architectural cage fight. But despite vast aesthetic differences (and deep philosophical discussion about the meaning of “greatest”), the quintet of judges Portland Monthly invited to tackle the task found consensus in just a few hours on not only the top 10 but even a single all-time favorite.

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1. Watzek House

John Yeon, 1937 // NW Skyline Boulevard

Image: University of Oregon

UNASSUMINGLY CLAD in clear fir tongue-and-groove siding, Portland’s most internationally exhibited and published house might easily be mistaken for a humble barn. But whether you zoom in on details like the beautifully stacked fieldstone foundation and the crisply minimal eave line or enjoy a full tour of the interiors, paneled in a symphony of finely crafted Oregon noble fir, western hemlock, and Oregon oak, a close look at the Watzek House leaves little doubt why Portland Monthly’s jury took mere minutes to put it at the top of their list.

Though John Yeon gained most of his architectural education in brief stints at the offices of Portland masters Herman Brookman and Albert E. Doyle, he emerged at the age of 26 a near-Mozartian wunderkind. His first built design, for the lumber baron Aubrey Watzek, became the defining early work of our only true architectural movement, the Northwest Regional style of modernism. Yet it also stood far apart from all the period’s fads. As European and American architects of the time were abandoning interior walls and mouldings for the cool, clean lines and open plans of the International style, Yeon fearlessly turned the Watzek House into a “sequence of revelations”—each hallway and room imbued with deeply sophisticated and often playful interpretations of Venetian, English, and even Asian styles. Yet, in this case, fusion is in the details: the pages of construction drawings articulating the house’s every joint numbered more than 600.

Image: Jack Liu

The Museum of Modern Art exhibited the Watzek House twice, the curators admiring how “the quiet sweep of simple forms harmoniously complements the fine Western landscape.” The home appeared in numerous American and European journals. Fearing new owners might mar his greatest work with clumsy remodels, Yeon bought the house himself in the ’70s. After his death in 1994, the house was donated to the University of Oregon, which formed the John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies the following year. The house is in the final stages of federal approval as a National Historic Landmark—the first Portland residence to achieve such status. After designing a dozen more houses and what is now called the “Rose Building” in Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Yeon devoted his career to museum exhibit design, historic preservation, and activism to protect the Oregon coast and the Columbia River Gorge.

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2. Knapp House

Justus Krumbein (attributed), 1882 // Northwest Portland (demolished)

Image: The Oregon Historical Society

OF THE MANY Victorian houses built during Portland’s first wave of growth in the late 19th century, few achieved the craftsmanship and invention of this one, built by Richard Knapp with a fortune earned selling farm tools. As architect and preservationist John Yeon wrote, “How a building of such high style was conjured up in a land so recently a wilderness will mystify every visitor … It is full of surprises, wit, and folly within a framework of serious grandeur.” The house’s cone-topped tower reached more than three stories high. A trio of chimneys made of brick, stone, and terra cotta pulled off the engineering feat of wrapping around windows. Inside, the house was pure cabinetry, every surface carved and paneled in ash, oak, and maple or covered in gold-embossed Japanese wallpaper and imitation leather. The baronial entrance hall led to 16 more rooms, the most impressive of which was a grand ballroom on the third floor. Yet, for all the house’s architectural achievement and beauty, the Archdiocese of Portland bought it and tore it down in the 1950s to offer more parking for St. Mary’s Cathedral. Portland Monthly’s jury strongly argued for its inclusion as the greatest of the many grand Portland homes lost to the city’s changing whims.

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3. Sutor House

Pietro Belluschi, 1938 // NW Skyline Boulevard

Image: Bruce Wolf

NO PORTLAND ARCHITECT has achieved greater international renown than Pietro Belluschi. His inventively modernist design of the Portland Art Museum in 1932, a series of groundbreaking local churches (St. Thomas More, Zion Lutheran, and others) in the ’40s, and his masterful aluminum-and-glass Equitable (now Commonwealth) Building vaulted him to both a prestigious deanship at MIT and celebrated commissions like Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the Pan Am Building (with Walter Gropius). But as juror William Hawkins put it, the home Belluschi designed for Jennings Sutor “launched a thousand ships.” Built nearly concurrently with (and just across the street from) the Watzek House, Belluschi’s Sutor House features a similarly simple, almost plain exterior. But inside, comparisons end. Smaller and more open in its plan, and striving for a near-Japanese minimalism in every detail, Belluschi’s design fully embraced the emerging trends of the International style of architecture. Far more influential than the more idiosyncratic Watzek House, the Sutor House established an iconic, but simpler, less expensive standard for other local architects to follow in the blossoming of Northwest Regional style. (Private)

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4. Mackenzie House

(now William Temple House) Whidden & Lewis, 1892 // 615 NW 20th Ave

Image: Bruce Wolf

WITH STATELY office towers like the Failing Building and the quirky, Renaissance-revival gem of Portland City Hall, Whidden & Lewis set the highest early architectural standard for downtown Portland. The firm proved equally adept at houses, the best of which is now known as the William Temple House. Originally built for Dr. Kenneth A. J. Mackenzie, co-founder of Oregon Health & Science University, the home is Portland’s most stunning example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with its trademark medieval-inspired stone arches, cone-topped turret, and wrought-iron details. Despite numerous turns of ownership (including stints as a speakeasy and a flophouse), the home’s interiors still stand among the city’s greatest, graced with oak paneling, cherry bookcases, tile mosaics, tin-embossed coffered ceilings, and a gaslight designed with a bat and serpent—the Scottish symbol for the triumph of medicine over witchcraft. The Episcopalian social service organization William Temple House purchased the home in 1971 and beautifully restored it in the 1990s. (For open house information, call 503-226-3021.)

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5. Pittock Mansion

Edward T. Foulkes, 1914 // 3229 NW Pittock Drive

Image: Michael Henley

ANY LIST OF PORTLAND’S greatest houses would be incomplete without this French Renaissance–inspired sandstone masterpiece. Built by Oregonian publisher and paper-mill magnate Henry Pittock and designed by the prominent San Francisco–based Edward Foulkes, the home grandly reigns over its domain with two wings converging in a massive, elliptical drawing room overlooking the city and the mountains beyond. Nearing the end of his life, Pittock spared no expense, his sense of legacy perhaps best embodied by the family coat of arms carved above the library fireplace. But the house leaves its most lasting impressions in two features: a curving, floating baroque staircase (pictured) that channels both the elegance of Michelangelo and the melodrama of Scarlett O’Hara; and Pittock’s personal bathroom, situated in a windowed turret offering one of the city’s most commanding views. (Open for tours.)

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6. M. Lloyd Frank Estate

Herman Brookman, 1924 // Lewis & Clark College Campus

Image: Lewis & Clark College

AMONG PORTLAND HOMES, nothing quite matches the merging of graceful period architecture and breathtaking landscape design found in the estate Herman Brookman fashioned for Meier & Frank department store heir M. Lloyd Frank. A classic pre-Depression mash-up of opulence and stylistic eclecticism, every detail invites careful appreciation, from the rustic brickwork (carefully composed to make the house appear to have been built over the ages) to the stunningly engineered hanging stairwell, a feature any red-blooded architect would pine to design even today. Yet, for all of Brookman’s attention to the parts, he never lost sight of the totality. The Frank Estate is ultimately about the experience of space, drawing you through a compression of intimate rooms and expansive grand halls to the crescendo of a eight-acre formal garden framing a view of Mount Hood. After living in the house for only 10 years, the Frank family sold it to Lewis & Clark College in 1942. It now serves as the administrative offices for the college’s president.

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7. Cobb House

Albert E. Doyle, 1917 // SW Montgomery Drive

Image: The Oregon Historical Society

ARGUABLY NO Portland architect shaped early Portland so widely as Albert E. Doyle, who designed much of the city’s emerging financial district; our trademark white terra-cotta buildings such as the Meier & Frank Building and Lipman’s (now Hotel Monaco); the earliest buildings of Reed College; and our most-visited civic building, the Multnomah County Central Library. But in the masterful mansion he designed for Dr. Frank J. Cobb, Doyle also gave Portlanders one of their greatest curb views, whether it is seen up close from the front gate on Montgomery Drive or from the city’s popular stair climb to SW Vista Avenue. True to the adaptability that allowed his larger buildings to survive the ages, the Cobb House is a study in flexibility, seeming to live small for a family or large for the grandest of parties, all within a floor plan that gracefully unites indoors and out on a steep, hillside site. In many ways, the home’s most beautiful room is the most modest: a simple, rounded breakfast room overlooking the gardens. (Private)

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8. Saul Zaik House

Saul Zaik, 1959 // NW Saint Helens Avenue

Image: Bruce Wolf

AT AGE 83, Saul Zaik is the last living midcentury Northwest modernist. Over his nearly six decades of practice, he has designed everything from historic renovations of Timberline Lodge to homes in Portland and Salishan for some of the city’s most illustrious families (including one house that sits atop a ship’s mast, for shipbuilder Arnold Zidell). But at heart, Zaik relishes interpreting warm, clean forms of modernism for the Northwest landscape in the local material of wood—and in this pursuit, the home he designed for his family stands as the finest example. The house is really a series of three separate pavilions—living spaces, bedrooms, and the carport—all connected by bridges and pathways. Each room is little more than columns, beams, and planes of glass-and-wood paneling. As simple as a Native American longhouse, but as delicate as leaf, Zaik’s home seems to almost hover above its wooded, hillside site. (Private)

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9. Maegley House

John Virginius Bennes, 1914 // SW Kingston Avenue

Image: The Oregon Historical Society

THROUGH THE PRAIRIE STYLE makes frequent appearances in turn-of-the-21st-century McMansion developments, when Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright first turned it into a Midwest movement it made only scattered appearances in the Northwest. But a wonderfully distinct example can be found on the edge of Washington Park in this house designed by the Chicago native John Virginius Bennes. To the Prairie-style hallmarks of low-hipped roof and long, hovering eaves, Bennes elegantly integrated an eclectic array of surprises, from the eye-catching, second-story bay windows to the festive, molded stucco reliefs and Mediterranean tile roof. The interior is no less dynamic, with all the major public rooms connecting to each other and to outdoor terraces, with plentiful views over Washington Park and the city. Bennes also designed such local landmarks as the Hollywood Theatre and more than 30 buildings for Oregon State University’s campus, but the Maegley House stands as his true masterpiece. (Private)

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Image: Richard Strode

10. Rockwood House

David Rockwood, 1986 // Hayden Island (North Shore)

NOT SINCE John Yeon’s Watzek House has a local residence enjoyed so much international attention as the Hayden Island home Portland-born architect David Rockwood designed for his parents. Published in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and featured in noted critic Kenneth Frampton’s book American Masterworks: The Twentieth Century House, Rockwood’s design channels Yeon’s uncompromising craftsmanship by way of the celebrated prefab aesthetic of Charles and Ray Eames. Standing as commandingly as a Venetian palazzo on the Columbia River, the Rockwood House features an exposed steel structural system based on a near-perfect 11-foot, 6-inch grid. Panels of lightweight pumice concrete sandwiching foam insulation (a system Rockwood invented well before “sustainable” wall panels became mainstream) attach to the steel grid to form the exterior walls and roof. The kit-of-parts geometry is so pure that Frampton described it as “neoplatonic.” But for an interior atrium that poetically breaks the pattern, the house creates the peaceful sense of floating in some much larger whole with every view and space framed by the grid. As much inventor as architect, Rockwood now teaches at the University of Hawaii, where he is developing new kinds of solar energy–producing building skins and an accelerating escalator. (Private)

Rummer Homes + Mod Fun

Sun, 13 May 2012 13:00:00 -0700

Image: HPLO

Rummer homes like this one in the Bohmann Park area of Garden Home will be open for touring Saturday June 2.

“If I could turn back time.” That’s a sentiment Cher sang famously, but most of us have had the feeling at one time or another. Well, the weekend of June 2-3 will be our collective chance to turn back time to the mid-twentieth century with a tour of Rummer Homes and a retro slide show by Americana kitsch-expert Charles Phoenix.

The home tour and the slide show provide a double dip into an authentic mid-century style that predates Hipstamatic, Instagram, Mad Men or Dwell magazine. Phoenix’s slide show is chock full of Kodachromes – originals he’s found at thrift stores and yard sales, not smartphone photos digitally altered to look old.

The Southern Californian pop culturist will be giving his appreciative, humorous take on favorite mid-century marvels of Americana, including his “Best of Portland” guide of local landmarks, legends and lore. (Preview: according to his website, Charles raves, “Portland is one of my fav cities to explore. Americana abounds here! I can’t wait to have a ‘Dutch baby’ at the Original Pancake House then go skating at Oaks Park, the “World’s Biggest Roller Rink!’”

“Rummer homes” (or “Rummers” as they’re often known in the Portland area) were essentially the Portland versions of a now-classic mid-century modernist house type built by the successful developer Joseph Eichler in Southern California. Rummers blend indoor and outdoor spaces and share many other Eichler-type features. (So did many other homes of the time, including the house that Steve Jobs grew up in and remembered fondly, according to Walter Isaacson’s recent biography; evidently Jobs and Isaacson thought the pre-Apple-ite’s childhood home was an Eichler, but it was not.)

Image: HPLO

Typical Rummer houses have an interior courtyard – a way to thoroughly bring the outside into the house.

A typical Rummer is also a veritable mullet of residential modernism: business in the front (closed and private wood walls and garage, recessed entry door), party in the back (floor to ceiling windows opening to landscaped garden). Wooden post and beam construction supports the vast walls of glass facing garden spaces and central, open-air atrium. Flat roofs cover the one-story spaces except where a central gable will pop up and create a high-ceilinged, clerestory-lighted main living space.

These houses are much revered, well built and amazingly adaptable to various sites, living styles and even décor. The houses on the tour (there will be at least eight open) are all in the Bohmann Park tract of the Garden Home district of metro Portland; the neighborhood boasts the highest concentration of Rummer homes in the metro area. Within four blocks, Rummer built 63 of his houses in the mid to late ’60s.The open houses on the tour will include Robert Rummer’s own house, and he and other homeowners will be available to guide us visitors through these fab spaces.

Historic Preservation League of Oregon
$40 per ticket (HPLO Members $35)
Saturday, June 2, 10am – 4pm

For more on Rummers, see historian Jack Bookwalter’s interesting article, Rummers in Oregon: A Builder’s Legacy of Mid-Century Modern Homes.

Slide show by Charles Phoenix is 3 p.m. at the Hollywood Theater; tickets $30 ($20 for HPLO members); save $5 if you get the package deal of house tour plus slide show tickets.

Neighborhoods by the Numbers: Real Estate 2012

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0700

AS THE SPRING home-selling and buying season commences, most good news lies in the future. How far? Nobody knows for sure.

Yet if you scan our annual real estate grids with a magnifying glass, positive stories can be found: neighborhoods seeing upticks in value, median ages going down, median income going up. And last year, the number of homes sold actually increased by more than 8 percent in Portland and by 12 percent in its outlying suburbs. In neighborhoods that saw double-digit percentage price drops in home values—like the Pearl, Hillside, and Cathedral Park—sales increased by as much as 80 percent.

According to Gerard Mildner, director of PSU’s Center for Real Estate, these trends should inspire some cautious optimism for the future.

“There are more transactions happening, and fewer people have homes on the market,” he says. “That means there’s some upward pressure on prices.”

But the best news, Mildner says, is that the housing bubble made us wiser—and long-term investments may begin to trump opportunistic buying.

“Your decisions about owning a home should be about the neighborhood and the size of the home and whether that fits what you need. It shouldn’t be about whether it’s going to appreciate in value quickly.”

Finding that perfect neighborhood is tough—but we’re here to help.

Download neighborhood and suburb stats on everything from the number of renters and frequent bus lines to school report card grades and park sizes.

Methodology & Sources

Distressed properties refers to the percentage of total homes sold that were short sales and bank-owned properties. Violent crime is defined as rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault. Crimes per 1,000 figures are based on reported incidents of violent crime as well as larceny (theft), burglary, arson, and motor vehicle theft.

Neighborhoods Portland neighborhood boundaries represent the records maintained by Metro as of December 2011. Neighborhood boundary conflicts were resolved (for statistical purposes only) using data from the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Due to overlap between certain neighborhoods, boundary definitions vary occasionally across categories.
Real Estate Information was provided by the Regional Multiple Listing Service, with analytical consulting from the Center for Spatial Analysis and Research at Portland State University’s Department of Geography. All figures were rounded for legibility.
People 2010 US Census data was compiled and analyzed by Esri, US Census Bureau, and the City of Portland.
Crime Portland crime statistics are courtesy of the Portland Police Bureau and contain 2011 data. Suburban crime statistics were obtained from the offices of the Clackamas County sheriff and the cities’ respective police departments. Many factors can influence the crimes-per-1,000 calculation and can complicate meaningful comparisons between neighborhoods. Because the rates are based on residential population data, the large workforce in areas like downtown and the Pearl District can distort the rates in those areas.
Parks Data was provided by Metro and the respective city parks departments.
Transit Information on MAX light-rail and WES commuter rail, Portland Streetcar, and TriMet bus routes was provided by TriMet. Additional suburban transit information was provided by C-TRAN, CAT, SMART, Columbia County Rider, and Yamhill County Action Partnership.
Walkability Data provided by the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Scores are on a scale from 1 to 100, taking into account walkable access to commercial services and amenities, as well as the number, quality, and slope of sidewalks, street connectivity, and topography. Different neighborhoods can have similar scores due to a different combination of inputs.
Walk Score Suburban data provided by walkscore.com. Score reflects, on a scale of 1 to 100, how easy it is to live in a neighborhood without a car, based on the number of nearby amenities like grocery stores. A score of 100, for instance, indicates that all daily errands can be completed without a vehicle. In cases where a citywide average was not available, scores for the city center were used.

Special thanks to David Banis and Nadia Jones of Portland State University’s Center for Spatial Analysis and Research

The Quintessential Portland Gardener

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0700

FROM THE BACKYARD to the front, from the planting strip to the rooftop, no unpaved part of Portland has been safe from gardeners. We’ve been at it a long time—both for food and good looks. The luggage hauled in the wagons on the Oregon Trail included everything from our prized strawberries to cuttings of our namesake rose. Over the decades, we built a Japanese and a Chinese garden that know no rivals outside their countries of origin. Meanwhile, the Willamette Valley chapter of Tilth designed an organic certification program in 1982 that eventually became the model for the nation.

Today, a walk through virtually any neighborhood will attest to how seriously Portland home gardeners take their yards. The sopping winters and bone-dry summers had the savviest digging up their lawns years before water-conscious xeriscaping became a civic mandate in many American cities. Crafty Stumptowners were recycling all kinds of cast-offs into art well in advance of Martha Stewart’s flashbulb.

In the following pages, we present a modest guide both for those who aspire to be the ultimate Portland gardener and for those who already are, but just want to refine their chops. Download this handy list of plants, nurseries, and other resources. But of our 50 tips, #1 requires nothing more than a shovel to …

Tip 1
DITCH THE LAWN. The first step to becoming a true Portland gardener is to go grass-free—at least free of the thirsty kind that’s been bioengineered for the conventional American “lawn.” Start by planting a rich tapestry of perennial flowers that will provide hummingbirds, bees, and other visitors with a feast from spring through early summer. Just figure out how tall you’d like your meadow to be, and get ready for a sweet, blowsy look.

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Join the Horticultural Avant-Garde

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

EMBRACING THE EXOTIC
Sean Hogan’s Northeast Portland yard is densely planted with hardy trees and shrubs that aren’t supposed to grow in Portland, including dramatic Yucca rostrata (foreground), tropical-leaved Tetrapanax papyrifer (closer to house), and evergreen oaks (top right) and eucalyptus (top left) at the canopy level.

BECOME A HORTLANDIAN. There are quite enough junipers and barberries in the world, thank you. To dig deeper into the heart of Portland gardendom, visit Hortlandia: the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s spring sale, April 7–8 at the Portland Expo Center. Dig even deeper by asking your favorite nurseries how they find their most exciting new plants.

GET SPIKY. Cacti and succulents are au courant among Stumptown gardeners. Get started with tough, addictively collectible little sedums and hens and chicks (Sempervivum). Push your acumen further with cold-hardy yucca and paddle cactus (Opuntia). Then go all the way with tender yet striking container plants, including Echeveria, aloe, and Aeonium—plants worth shuttling in and out again every year.

CREATE YOUR OWN HAWAII. We may think of bananas, palms, loquat, and passion vine as far too tender for Portland, but there are sturdy varieties that thrive in the Pacific Northwest. Banana (Musa basjoo), tough palms (Trachycarpus fortunei), passion vine (Passiflora caerulea), and loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) lend a thrillingly exotic look to your garden while requiring less care and attention than turf grass. And if you have a daylit basement, you can go truly tropical with red-leafed banana (Ensete maurelii) and exotic angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia). Just drag them inside in the fall and then back out in the spring to watch them explode into growth.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

PLANT INSPIRATION
The vibrant orange flowers of Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Red Dragon’ appear in late winter and early spring. Plant in a warm spot in half to full sun, with rich soil, summer water, and good drainage.

GROW OUT OF THE GRAY. Local gardeners know a secret about Portland winters: the dark and dreary is nothing more than background for eye-enchanting color. For bright golds, reds, and oranges, plant witch hazel; for pinks, red, and glistening white, go with winter camellias; for buttercup yellow, try winter hazel; hellebores make pinks, purples, pale yellows, peaches, and whites; and cyclamen blooms pale to hot pink. For knockout fragrance, plant winter-blooming honeysuckle and viburnum, winter sweet, sweet box, and daphne. For a more subtle beauty, try winter-blooming clematis, early spiketail, and silktassel.

RISE UP FROM THE GROUND. Inspired by Europe, Portlanders are exploring the beauty and ecological benefits of green roofs and living walls, whether atop government buildings like the Metro headquarters or stylish hot spots like Hotel Modera, where cocktails are served next to an eye-level patch of cliff-dwelling plants. Start with easy-to-install Woolly Pockets, or go to pros like Living Elements Landscape, who specialize in greening small spaces.

COLLECT IT. True garden devotees don’t just plant plants; they collect them. Rare terrestrial orchids, clematis, agaves, or heirloom tomatoes: there’s a Portland plant nerd searching for any plant variety you can think of. The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon is geek central for hobnobbing, seed-sharing, and lectures by renowned gardeners.

Expert Tips

Garden Style
Sean Hogan | Designer, consultant, and owner, Cistus Design Nursery

Image: Thomas Cobb

I was born and raised in Portland, but moved to the Bay Area and, there, served as a curator of the Berkeley Botanical Garden. When I moved back home to Portland, I found a wonderful and large established horticultural industry that catered to the East Coast rather than to us. Portland was still developing a garden style of its own. I started Cistus because it was hard to find Willamette Valley native plants without going to California! I wanted to plant local, low-elevation plants that were suited to our region, but I couldn’t find them.

Pushing the horticultural boundaries can be rediscovering what we have in our own backyard. You can grow cool plants for all kinds of effects—tropical, rain forest, alpine, desert, whatever flora you want—but that are better adapted. What we have to discover and play with in our region is still so fun.

STARTER KIT

Soil: Most urban soils need better drainage. Chop in some pumice for dry-land plants, or compost for woodland plants.
Plants:Go ahead, try palms, banana, pomegranate, agaves, evergreen oaks, and other fun plants that remind us that we live on the West Coast! But don’t neglect plants from our region, which firmly ground us with a sense of place.

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Photo: Courtesy Janet Loughrey

DRY YET LUSH
Bruce Wakefield and Jerry Grossnickle’s West Hills garden is designed for drought tolerance and lush abundance at the same time, with yuccas, paddle cactus, and agave softened by purple and pink penstemon, salvias, Centranthus, ground cover sedum, and Euphorbia cyparissus.

Tune in to the Climate

MAP IT. Every yard has a variety of different growing environments, or microclimates. A great way to plan your garden is by sketching a map. Take a monthly walk through your yard for a year, noting south- and west-facing walls that reflect heat, sunny spots that will dry out, and shady areas destined to stay damp into late spring. Note where you have poor soil or tangles of tree roots and, if you’re lucky, patches of dark, rich loam. With a detailed map to work with, a good horticultural professional can offer advice on what to plant where.

GROW WITH THE WATER. In the quest for striking plant combinations, even the best designers forget this rule. Picture a desert oasis in your yard—with a lushly planted core beside the spring (your hose bib or downspouts), surrounded by progressively more drought-tolerant plantings toward the edges.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

GO HARDY
Plants like this Agave parryi can grow in the Portland area, provided they are planted in the sun, in gritty, well-draining soil. Plant less hardy types in portable containers.

DON’T BE A “ZERO-SCAPER.” Xeriscaping isn’t about re-creating the surface of Mars in your front yard. It’s actually a time-honored approach to environmentally appropriate, low-water garden design. Avoid zero-scaping by planting luscious, wildlife-attracting plants, including perennials like California fuchsia (Zauschneria), shrubs like manzanita, grasses like Stipa giganteum, and our summer drought-loving native madrone tree.

LET THE RAIN BLOOM. Don’t fight damp ground by trying to plant things you wish would grow there. Instead, go with damp-loving species: red-twigged dogwood (Cornus sericeus) and sweet flag (Acorus gramineus), both of which love life under a downspout or marshy areas. Consult Metro’s online rain garden plant lists at oregonmetro.gov for more ideas.

WATCH THE WEEDS. How much we should combat invasive species is a hot issue in our region. But nobody can deny that English ivy, blackberry, and a handful of other exotic weeds encroach on native habitat and overtake more desirable plants. Take the time to learn about which plants are invasive in our area and remove them from your own garden. SOLV offers excellent information and volunteer opportunities.

Expert Tips

The Right Plants
Lance Wright | Horticulturist, City of Portland

Image: Thomas Cobb

I’m a geography junkie. It comes into play when I garden at home and at work. I don’t adhere strictly to an Oregon palette of plants—maybe more West Coast—but above all, I try to plant Mediterranean-climate plants that don’t require extra summer water.

Of course, everyone gets seduced by plants—I still do— but I really try to learn about each of them. Where did it come from? What’s the climate like there? Can I provide it with similar conditions? Look at soil conditions, drainage, sun and shade, as well as local climate. You can’t just plant the same set of cookie-cutter plants that have been successful somewhere else—go with what’s appropriate to the site.

STARTER KIT

Plants: For dry areas, select plants from regions that have wet winters and dry summers: types of Ceanothus, manzanitas ( Arctostaphylos ), yuccas, penstemon, salvia, and California fuchsia (Zauschneria).

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Photo: Courtesy Meghan Fuller

NURTURE NATURE
Garden designers Marina Wynton and Mike Pajunas’s garden is a hotbed for insects and birds, with a green roof planted with four types of sedum, a nature frame (insect habitat), and a moisture-loving mixed hedge of native spiraea, goatsbeard, and Pacific wax myrtle.

Make a Habitat

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

FIT FOR NESTING
Tualatin garden writer Lisa Albert’s birdhouse features an entry hole sized perfectly for wrens.

GO MULTISPECIES. Why should only humans admire your garden? The best home for birds and pollinators is a diverse one. Plant in layers, with open patches of soil for ground-foraging birds, knee-high perennial flowers for seed head and perches (the flexible, wandlike stems of lilies seem to be favorites), and shoulder-level thickets of shrubs with an open habitat (not tightly clipped) for cover and nesting. Grow trees for absolutely everything. You can even get official with a Backyard Habitat Certification from the Audubon Society of Portland.

FEED YOUR FRIENDS.Grow plants that provide seeds (asters) and nectar (fuchsia) for a more eclectic set of neighbors. Plant old-fashioned echinacea and sunflower, and birds will pick seed right off the plant. Native fruiting shrubs like snowberry and huckleberry provide birds with a buffet. Plant nectar-rich red flowering currant for spring, Phygelius for summer, fuchsia for fall, and winter-flowering mahonia if you want the hummingbirds around all year long.

LEAVE A MESS. Repress your inner neatnik and don’t clean up your garden until late January. By holding off on cutting back dead lily stalks and scruffy fuchsia stems, you’re providing shelter and perches for winter birds, as well as habitat for insects (high-protein bird chow). Consider making a loose brush pile in an out-of-the-way spot to offer shelter and nesting for smaller birds.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

SUNSHINE BLUE
Blueberries provide food for people and birds, and habitat for the Pacific tree frog. Hardy geranium ‘Rozanne’ winds through these Sunshine Blue blueberries.

SUPERCHARGE THE BUFFET. Recent studies at Oregon State University suggest “superfood” plants best draw insects and pollinators: asters, alyssum, basil, cilantro, cosmos, fuchsia, nasturtiums, sedum, and sunflowers, as well as such trees as dogwood, fruit trees, and willow.

ADD A BIRDHOUSE. Head over to the Portland Audubon Society or to the Backyard Bird Shop to find the specific kind of bird feeders and nesting boxes that will attract the species you want hanging out in your yard.

CREATE A BUZZ. Even if you don’t have the time and money to commit to beekeeping, you still can provide habitat for nonaggressive, ground-dwelling solitary types like the industrious orchard mason bee. These and other solitary bees pollinate fruit trees, small fruit, and vegetables, thereby improving yields. You can buy or make nesting cubes, or simply leave dry, sunny banks of soil free of vegetation. For more information, consult the Xerces Society website (xerces.org).

Expert Tips

Naturescaping
Marina Wynton | Garden designer, Olivine Landscape Design

Image: Thomas Cobb

After I was in architecture school, I saw that something had to be done about the environmental problems we were facing. At the time, I was sitting in front of a computer in an office all day. I wanted to do more. So I started to work with people to solve environmental problems in their own spaces.

“Naturescaping” is a way of designing a garden to support wildlife. We select plants to provide habitat for insects, which will then draw native birds, frogs, snakes, and other creatures. Why snakes and frogs? They keep mosquitoes down. And frogs sound great!

Each project gives me a chance to educate people on what they can do environmentally in their own yards. Naturescaping is not necessarily low-maintenance, although it can be. But it is a step toward repairing the environmental problems we face as a society.

STARTER KIT

Learn: View a PDF of Portland’s Native Plants at portlandonline.com/bps. Choose the right natives for your neighborhood and attract the native creatures specific to the habitat you’re rebuilding.
Plant:Opt for natives in groups of 3 to 5 for each variety. For the choices best suited for your neighborhood, visit portland?online.com and consult the Portland Plant List.

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Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

IF THE SHOE FITS…
Hens and chicks (Sempervivum), two types of sedum, and a small shell transform a high-class faux-alligator shoe into lovable low-brow art in Nancy Goldman’s Northeast Portland garden.

Be an Art Patron (or an Artist)

UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY. Portland’s recycling ethos has no greater expression than in its citizens’ gardens. The best art can come from your own basement. Dig up that old bike or lamp shade to reincarnate the perfect trellis, planter, or decoration. Elevate that exquisite stone figurine from Thailand on a pedestal to make an outdoor altar. That lovely gnarled branch you gleaned on a beach trip? Set it in a garden bed and add a little vine like Clematis integrifolia or sweet peas. Beautiful, funny, funky, or elegant—custom-made art makes a great conversation starter.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

ART UNDERFOOT
Northeast Portland garden designer and artist Jeffrey Bale designs each mosaic according to the site—and the aesthetics of the homeowner. Here, mosaic art in Nancy Goldman’s garden is planted with drought-tolerant Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’.

KNOW THYSELF. Portlanders are nothing if not inventive, but it’s best to leave anything technical and permanent to the experts. If you’re into sleek, contemporary concrete or the funky, bohemian look of handmade mosaic paths, but designing or building them isn’t in your skill set, find the designer or craftsperson of your dreams, ask people whose gardens you admire, or check out the Association of Northwest Landscape Designers.

BE A PATRON. Support your local artists. Cracked Pots’ annual July sale at McMenamins Edgefield is legendary for great garden finds. Pieces run the gamut from lowbrow repurposed punched tin-can lanterns to upscale recycled metal installation pieces. Great local garden shops like Digs Inside & Out on NE Alberta Street and Dig, in the Pearl, offer great locally made art.

REMEMBER SCALE. Art needs to rise to the occasion of the outdoors. Think big or in multiples, especially with small pieces, which can disappear into the foliage or landscape.

GET PICTURESQUE. Think about your garden as a painting, whether seen from your front stoop or from a chair through a window. Place art within your fondest views. Keep plantings simple around fussy art. Modern objects look great with bold, monochromatic plantings. A colorfully painted birdhouse will be enhanced by voluptuous, old-fashioned cottage garden flowers like foxgloves, daisies, love-in-a-mist, and black-eyed Susan.

Expert Tips

DIY Garden Art
Nancy Goldman | Retired PSU administrator; recycled-art creator

Image: Thomas Cobb

I’d seen people use boots as planters, but that wasn’t fancy enough for me. So I tried some little shoes. I drilled holes in the bottom and filled them with soil, planted them, and displayed them on a shoe rack.

I got a lot of the shoes in secondhand stores in North Dakota, where I’m from. I got one pair from an estate sale where the husband told me his deceased wife had worn them dancing. I liked that. They don’t last forever—but that’s fine. Nothing’s permanent.

I’m a Dumpster diver, and I’ve always found things for inside my house and my garden. It speaks to my aesthetic—making something traditional nontraditional. A while back, I started using alphabet magnets. I’ve got little sayings throughout the garden. One of them is “Hortus meus culum calcitrat”—my garden kicks ass.

STARTER KIT

Plants: Sedums, sempervivums
Planters:Trawl thrift stores for funky shoes, dishes, and bits of architectural salvage.

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Photograph Courtesy Susan Seubert

URBAN BOUNTY
An oversized corner lot in North Portland supplies Pat Collins with vegetables, berries, and fruit—as well as honey and chicken eggs. Flowers like borage provide fodder for pollinating insects, while sweet peas provide cut flowers.

Stock Your Kitchen

SEED LOCAL. Portlanders love to buy local. Planting locally grown and adapted seeds has its advantages, too. Regional seed companies select varieties that do well in our climate, and growing your own—especially if you’re planting a large garden—is certainly cheaper than buying starts. For the local touch, buy your seeds from companies like Wild Garden Seed, Adaptive Seeds, Horizon Herbs, Uprising Seeds, and Siskiyou Seeds.

TAKE IT TO THE STREETS. Older neighborhoods with tightly packed houses and tall trees often have scant sun available. If the best light you have falls on the parking strip or front lawn, turn that dry turf into a flourishing vegetable garden. Don’t be daunted by dogs, marauding kids, and people stepping out of their cars onto the lettuce—you’re now part of an international movement called Food Not Lawns.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

IT’S NO CHOKE
Harvest artichokes to eat with butter, or leave them to produce huge, electric-blue flowers in summertime.

NURTURE FAMILY HEIRLOOMS. Developed for their flavor and texture (rather than a tough skin for shipping), heirlooms and open-pollinated vegetable varieties are excellent for home gardeners, both for culinary quality and because the seeds can be saved and planted next year. In fact, if home gardeners and small farmers didn’t grow them, heirlooms would disappear.

GROW FRUITS TO NUTS. Apples, plums, pears, Asian pears, cherries, figs, grapes, kiwis, raspberries, blueberries, walnuts, filberts—we are blessed to be able to grow these and many more edibles in Portland. On smaller lots, dwarf and espalier-form trees are your best option. If you have a large tree and can’t handle the abundance, don’t let it go to waste: donate your yield to the Portland Fruit Tree Project or Urban Gleaners. Volunteers are happy to harvest.

GROW ORGANIC. All plants really need is the proper light, moisture, nutrients, and temperature conditions, and they can outgrow most basic insect and disease problems, insecticide free. Diversity in your garden plot also helps, as does planting extra to allow for a certain percentage of loss. Consult Metro’s natural gardening website at oregonmetro.gov.

TRY POTS. Growing herbs and vegetables in containers is smart, even if you do have plenty of yard space. They can be beautiful. They keep food close at hand and the slugs out. And if you live in a cool pocket or higher-elevation area, heat-loving summer vegetables like tomatoes and melons can grow faster in sun-warmed containers.

POOP IS GOOD. If you have room for chickens, goats, ducks, or bunnies, all the better for your garden. But if keeping pets isn’t an option, try worms—they’re one of the best ways to boost the health and productivity of your vegetable garden soil. Follow the simple directions that come with a worm bin, keep it drained and emptied of worm castings, and you’ll be able to store it in or near your kitchen for easy compost disposal.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

GREENS GALORE
Cabbage, fennel, chard, and tomatoes are but a few of the vegetables Michael and Julie Safley grow in the formal, boxwood-edged potager of their 70-acre garden and alpaca ranch in Hillsboro.

KEEP YOUR SCRAPS. It’s fabulous that we can dump our table leftovers in the green yard debris bins now, but kitchen scraps can also provide you with your own “gardeners’ gold.” Pick up an inexpensive compost bin from Metro to get started. Layer food scraps with dry lawn clippings, leaves, straw, or fine wood chips. If you eat in a lot, even better: get two containers so one can “cook” while you fill the other.

COVER UP. Crimson clover, winter peas, and fava beans are great to plant in fallow soil. Cover crops like these can break up compacted soil, stop erosion, and improve nutrient content and healthy fungi. Just dig up the soil enough to plant, pick a suitable cover crop for the season, and chop them down (usually just before flowering) so they decompose and improve the soil. Don’t assume the seeds are the right ones for the season just because they’re available at the store—ask.

Expert Tips

Grow Your Own
Pat Collins | Retired flight attendant; avid gardener and chicken-keeper

Image: Thomas Cobb

The first vegetables I grew, years ago, were tomatoes and basil. They weren’t necessarily to eat. I wanted something beautiful to look at. But those first few tomato and basil plants were so productive, I got hooked. They’re quick and provide almost instant gratification—and they’re much less intimidating for beginning gardeners. Nowadays, I don’t care how my vegetable garden looks so much. I do it to feed my soul.

You can grow lettuce blindfolded. The list of easy vegetables to grow is so long: potatoes require almost no effort, figs are some of the easiest fruit trees, and strawberries are so wonderful to have. Even though you can get them fresh at farmers markets nearly all summer, it’s so great to pick them throughout the summer and pop them, fresh from the garden, in your cereal bowl.

STARTER KIT

Soil: There’s no replacing homemade compost for your vegetable garden. (See Metro’s guidelines at oregonmetro.gov.)
Plants:Keep it simple at first, planting kale, lettuce, and strawberries. Then branch out.

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Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

SIDEWALK SAVVY
Lance and Julie Wright’s Southeast Portland sidewalk gardens brim with heat-loving plants, including California fuchsia (Zauschneria), penstemon, salvia, grasses, yucca, agave, and a windmill palm.

Make a Parking-Strip Sanctuary

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

PLANT SMART
Lucy and Fred Hardimans’ Southeast Portland parking-strip garden includes drought-tolerant Mediterraneans like Euphorbia characias and golden oregano and bulbs like Scilla peruviana.

BLAST YOUR “HELLSTRIP.” That’s what garden geeks call the too-often neglected zone between street and sidewalk. But in Portland, they’ve become the equivalent of the natty scarf that ties a great outfit together. Before you start, consider a few ground rules: the city of Portland owns your parking strip, so don’t start digging without knowing the regulations for gas lines, what kind of trees you can plant and where, or how to keep the water meter box accessible. Check out the regs at portlandonline.com.

CONNECT PLANTS AND PLACE. If your planting strip is shady, try winter-blooming dwarf Himalayan box (Sarcococca hookeriana v. humilis), which blossoms with fragrant flowers in January and February. Greedy tree roots to contend with? Native Vancouveria and sword ferns need little water, and can deal with shade and compete with tree roots. Is it sunny? Try sun-loving, drought-tolerant hotties like manzanitas, rosemary, and Salvia x greggii . Partial sun? Go for star jasmine ( Trachelospermum asiaticum) or sedums.

KNOW YOUR SOIL. To turn your hellstrip into a curbside heaven, good soil will be your guiding angel. Start by loosening it between six inches and two feet deep (less for shallow-rooted ground covers like creeping sedums or thyme, more for shrubs and trees). Incorporate compost tailored to your intended plantings. And don’t let your soil overflow onto the street—very salmon-unfriendly.

Photo: Courtesy Josh Mccullough

WIDE BERTH
Garden designer Laura Crockett’s Hillsboro garden features a voluptuously wide parking strip with stylish sweeps of plants and easy accessibility.

PLAN FOR THE WALKERS. Carbon offsets from colonizing your parking strip aside, folks parking on the street need to get in and out of their cars, so leave some zones of brick or concrete “hardscaping.”

PLANT AN ALTERNA-LAWN. If you’re ready for a little more work, low-growing “steppables” are great: creeping sedum or thyme (for sun), Acaena or Cotula (for half sun), or blue star creeper (for shade). Other options include small, grasslike plants such as dwarf Ophiopogon.

PLAY CHESS WITH TREES. Tired of looking at your neighbor’s unkempt lawn? Want your car shaded from the afternoon sun? Block either with a strategically placed tree. First, check to see if Friends of Trees will be planting in your neighborhood and join it if you can. If not, search the city’s list for a drought-tolerant tree species with the right height, width, and maybe even flowers at portlandonline.com.

Image: Thomas Cobb

Expert Tips

Clever Curbs
Lucy Hardiman | Writer; garden designer, Perennial Partners

I come from a family of pioneers that traveled in the first wagon train from Independence, Missouri, to Independence, Oregon. They carried seeds, and stuck treasured cuttings in potatoes to preserve them. What we now call “sustainable” was how we were taught to live on the planet.

When I moved to Portland, the big parking strips all over town didn’t make any sense to me. To maintain a lawn in the two feet of clay soil between street and sidewalk, people were watering and using herbicides. So at our house, I had a crew take out the top 12 inches of soil. We added soil amendment and pumice and mulched with a quarter-10 gravel so we could plant a drought-tolerant garden. You need drainage. It’s not the winter cold that kills most plants; it’s the wet!

STARTER KIT

Plant:Consider Mediterranean plants like cistus, hellebores, euphorbias, Pacific Coast iris; minor bulbs; and herbs like lavender and sage.

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Photo: Courtesy Naomi Montacre

ONLY IN PDX
Neil Montacre of Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply cuddles PJ Harvey, a six-year-old transgender hen that crows like a rooster. At Montacre’s feet are two goats that fit in well to city life: a fully grown, pint-size gray Pygmy goat named Nellie; and Moon Shark, a white Boer goat.

Party with the Animals

BE AN URBAN HOMESTEADER. A small, fervent contingent of urban Portlanders have kept chickens—and even ducks and quail—for nearly 15 years. Now, it’s hard to find a block in the inner city without coops. The word’s out: there’s just no substitute for fresh, organic eggs.

TAKE A TOUR. Every summer, Growing Gardens hosts the annual Tour de Coops. There is no better way to connect with fellow chicken keepers and see the wide range of available coop styles and chicken breeds firsthand. It’s also a great way to see how different people integrate chickens into their garden.

BUILD CHIC ARCHITECTURE. Along with the vogue for backyard animals comes the craze for cool custom chicken coops and goat sheds, and pens in styles ranging from funky salvage to whatever matches perfectly with the architectural scheme of your house. Just make sure the coops and runs you build are designed to keep your creatures safe from marauding raptors, coyotes, and raccoons.

. . . OR A TRAVEL TRAILER. Half the joy in keeping a flock lies in knowing they are improving the health and tilth of your garden. But their little scratching feet can wreak havoc on newly planted seedlings. The solution? A portable chicken tractor, to help you control where the chickens forage.

MOW BILLY. Miniature goats have recently made inroads into Portlanders’ hearts, as well as into empty public lots, where they can chew through a forest of weeds in days. They also make fine pets, but to clear those blackberries or trim the lawn, the cautious can rent some through goatrentalnw.com.

Expert Tips

The Homesteader
Naomi Montacre | Owner, Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply

Image: Thomas Cobb

The chicken thing all started when I was craving some eggs while we were farming west of Portland and surrounded by neighbors’ early-morning rooster calls. Our first five hens are still spunky members of our bigger flock today, six years later. I love watching little tufts of fluff grow into lively, comical characters with unique personalities. Then there’s the thrill of that first orange-yolked egg from the nest box you built, drinking fresh milk from your own little goats in the backyard, gathering mohair fiber, and having sweet pets to walk around the neighborhood.

Goats, hens, and ducks are really easy to care for, more like cats than dogs once you get their housing set up—and their manure provides great fertility for your garden.

STARTER KIT

Housing: Buy a coop kit at thegardencoop.com or backyardchickens.com.
Feed: For chickens and goats, grow extra greens (kale, chard, collards, bok choy) and fruits (berries, apples, melons). Goats help keep blackberry bushes at bay, and they all love the berries.

The New Victorian

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:30:00 -0700

Image: Leela Cyd Ross

A sleek modern addition freshens a traditional Victorian with the dickinson family’s design-forward style, while warm wood set against a black exterior highlights the contrast between old and new.

Image: Leela Cyd Ross

ON A QUIET, DEAD-END STREET IN Northwest Portland, tucked among tall swaying trees, is an elegant Victorian painted charcoal black. A shaft of sunlight falls through the expansive front windows, landing on a stuffed opossum hanging upside down next to the fireplace. An orange, ceramic owl winks from its perch in the gleaming stainless and white kitchen, and a painted strip of neon pink lines the dining-room threshold. Forget traditional 19th-century style—when British transplants Stephanie and Phil Dickinson bought the place, they were determined to redesign “Victorian” for their modern family’s taste and needs. “Our aim was to have the workmanship of an old house but not to be beholden to that point in time,” says Stephanie. “We wanted to bring it into this century.”

A creative director of sportswear at Nike and a handsome Brit with a roguish sense of humor, Phil suddenly found himself transferred to Portland. After a few months of surfing online real-estate sites, Phil found a close copy of the family’s Victorian home in London, a house alike in both vintage and interior layout (though bigger). The similar location—on a street overrun with children and close to schools and parks—sealed the deal. “I wanted my family to feel settled,” says Phil. So he bought the house (sight unseen by Stephanie except for some e-mailed photos) on a quick trip to Portland and then, after admiring a new house they had designed in Southwest Portland, contacted Kricken and James Yaker of local design firm Vanillawood to help with what was to be just a basic kitchen update and touch-ups of bathrooms and paint.

Image: Leela Cyd Ross

Inside muted paint colors, understated light fixtures, and clean architectural lines are a blank canvas for the family’s funky leanings. “It’s about inflicting our personality in things that can be swapped out,” says Stephanie.

For Stephanie, an attractive blonde whose casually chic style and no-?nonsense air belie a razor-sharp wit, however, it was more shock than love at first sight. Fresh off a plane from London with their two children in tow, she stepped over the threshold, kicked aside dead beetles and piles of withered leaves, and wondered what her husband had been thinking. “Outside, it was painted six or seven colors of cream, red, and green, and inside, it was dark and oppressive,” says Stephanie with a slight grimace. A stay-at-home mother with a previous career in television directing, animation, and branding, she shares her husband’s aesthetic—but this house
wasn’t a match. “It hadn’t had any work done for a long time, and the kitchen was a horrible ’80s kind of thing,” she says. James laughs, remembering bringing pizza and beer over to the family to welcome them home that first night. “I thought she was going to move right back to London.”

The scope of Vanillawood’s work with the Dickinsons suddenly grew from a small touch-up and kitchen remodel to a whole house renovation. “It was all about opening up the rooms so that if they were doing different things, they could still be together as a family,” explains Kricken. “Plus, we wanted to emphasize indoor–outdoor living and bring in more light.”

The remodel took place in three phases. First was a simple six-week process of painting and minor work (adding a closet here, putting in new sinks there) on the second floor to complete daughter Mary’s and son Stan’s bedrooms and baths.

Image: Leela Cyd Ross

“A lot of our style is about comfort and usability,” says Stephanie, as evidenced by the wallpaper of the upstairs powder room and the playful childrens’ bedrooms.

The second phase was far more extensive. To realize Stephanie and Phil’s desire for one big cooking-and-dining area, the designers transformed the cramped galley kitchen and two adjoining rooms into one large box, an entire side finished with a wall of massive glass doors that fold back to seamlessly connect to an expansive deck. Since the framing was complicated—requiring the services of architect David Alt, plus structural support of two giant exposed horizontal beams and concrete footings below—what was initially conceived of as a short project of a few weeks dragged on, courtesy of slow city-permitting, to five months, including Christmas. The Dickinsons found themselves stirring up dinners on a small camping stove in the living room, a tarp covering the exposed back side of the house as chilly winter rains poured outside. “Our motto was a British slogan,” says James, “‘keep calm and carry on.’” In the final remodeling phase, a badly planned third-floor attic space became a master suite, complete with a sun-dappled, glassed-in shower-and-bath area and plush dressing room.

Image: Leela Cyd Ross

Pages of an ornithology book paper the downstairs powder room walls (left), and quiet forest wall-paper sets a contemplative tone in the master suite (right).

The overall style Kricken describes as “urban modern meets eclectic, funky, tongue-in-cheek spunky.” The family isn’t concerned with having the house reflect a certain era; instead, there’s a smart mix of both old and new. “We have stackloads of historic homes back in London,” says Phil. “Here, if you do midcentury modern or faux farmhouse, people want it all that one style. Being English, we just picked a bunch of stuff we liked, mashed it all up, and now chill out and enjoy it.”

It’s a theme that runs throughout the whole house. In the living room, squashy vintage couches feature pillows made from old British tea towels while retro-mod metal chandeliers from the ’70s hang overhead. Old French armoires hold dishes and kitchenware next to a table that Phil made from two long Ikea work surfaces, the bases of which he painted neon pink, while stainless steel kitchen counters shimmer nearby. Stephanie wallpapered one bathroom with pages of an old ornithology book; upstairs, a small office is hidden behind what appears to be a solid wall. Pops of orange and pink appear throughout, set against mostly neutral backdrops. Even the exterior deliberately contrasts the warm cedar siding of the deck-and-kitchen ?remodel against the all-black color of the rest of the house.

“I think we created a beautiful family home infused with all our playful flavor and fun,” says Phil. “After all, it’s nice to have a bit of irreverence in life.”

Neighborhoods by the Numbers

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:55:00 -0700

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