Speaker 1 (00:00):

There’s so much activity that you can see just sitting in this living room right now, look at the pirate ship that’s coming by, um, for Seafair. So in the summertime, it is very active out here. All the fun things that are happening on the lake are happening essentially in your front yard.

Speaker 2 (00:19):

I’m Gina Colucci with the Seattle design center every week on inspired design, we sit down with an iconic creator in a space that inspires them.

Speaker 1 (00:27):

I’m Michelle Linden. And I am one of the owners at Atel aro architecture, interior design, and branding

Speaker 2 (00:33):

Today on inspired design. Michelle takes us through her team’s rebuild of a floating home commissioned by the home owners who were looking to update their living space. After nearly 40 years, as a part of Seattle’s lake union, houseboat community,

Speaker 1 (00:47):

They raised their kids in this home. As their kids grew up, they were ready to move up, you know, change their, um, the way they needed the house to live.

Speaker 2 (00:53):

They were houseboats are an iconic part of Seattle’s landscape and history. If you’ve ever seen the 1993 film sleepless in Seattle, then you know what I’m talking about for over a hundred years, houseboats along Seattle’s lakes, bays and rivers were initially popular for working class residents, especially loggers and fishermen at its peak. Seattle had nearly 2000 floating homes yet due to current legislation, only about 500 remain right now. No new houseboats are permitted on lake union. So we are so lucky that Michelle and the homeowners agreed to show us around. Michelle tells me there’s an important distinction when it comes to houseboat versus a floating home.

Speaker 1 (01:36):

So a houseboat is, is an actual boat that you can live on, right? So you see a live aboard and you sometimes see them in the north side of the lake where, um, you don’t have full height, just like what we’re imagining, where you live on a boat. And everything’s compartmentalized almost like I don’t wanna say an RV, but kind of similar to that. Yeah. Whereas a floating home is really, um, it’s built just like a regular home, except that it’s floating. And so it’s connected to, you know, the sewer is connected to power. It’s connected to, um, all the infrastructure of the city, um, via the dock. Uh, but it’s in this case, we’re floating on logs. A lot of times it’s floating on concrete or, or other barrel systems. But, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s not that much different than a regular home. Okay. Except for the floating part. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:18):

And so for the home owners, if you’re, if you own a house boat yeah. You own the house, but that’s it,

Speaker 1 (02:25):

If you own the house boat, um, yeah. The, you own the house boat and you probably rent a slip for a floating home. It, it varies, but most people, um, you know, own a, uh, essentially the part of their, part of the slip too. Um, there’s an HOA that usually the whole dock is involved. And so, um, things changes that are made, uh, with the doc. There’s usually an association. There may be rules. Like if you can have dogs, some of the docs allow them some don’t, um, there there’ll be rules about, you know, if you’re reconstructing your home, uh, what you can do this house in particular, like we, we had a height limit that we had to stay under. So, um, that is, uh, usually those, those rules and guidelines are maintained by the HOA

Speaker 2 (03:05):

Floating homes range in size from 600 square feet, which would be a studio or one bedroom to a little bit larger or much larger to three to four bedrooms. This particular floating home fell in the middle range, two bed, two bath. Every dock is like any neighborhood street, you’re going to find homes with different styles. I would say this one was a modern Pacific Northwest style. And this one sits on a prime location in lake union. Where are we floating?

Speaker 1 (03:32):

Yeah. Right now. Yeah. So, um, we’re on lake union and we are on the east side of the lake, um, facing west. And this house is really special because it’s on the very end of the dock. So it has just incredible views of downtown the Ballard bridge.

Speaker 2 (03:50):

So you’ve got 180 degree view of,

Speaker 1 (03:52):

Of the lake of the lake. Yeah. You can see everything and you can see right now, look at the pirate ship that’s coming by, um, for Seafair. So in the summertime, it is very active out here. Um, there are a lot of people, um, the sea planes, obviously you see them coming in and out all the time, but you see a lot of people kayaking or I think that’s one of those hot tub boats over there. And just every, all the fun things that are happening on the lake are happening essentially in your front yard.

Speaker 2 (04:15):

We toured the floating home just a few days before Seafair Seattle’s annual weekend boating event, airshow and festival Seafair is one of the busiest and most vibrant times to be people and boat watching on lake union. You redesigned from the logs up. Yep. Everything. Yep. And so what were some of the key attributes you wanted to keep or, or enhance?

Speaker 1 (04:37):

Yeah, well, I think that one of the interesting things about this home and the homeowners in particular, because they’d been living here for so long, they knew where the heavy traffic was. Right. They knew where the good light was. And so it was important to have that interaction with the outside is why you live here. But at the same time, they need some peaceful areas of, of respite. Right. So where can you go when it’s totally insane on a sea fair weekend? You know, how do you, how do you retreat to the, the backside of the home

Speaker 2 (05:04):

As we chatted about the view, a sea plane flew right over us and landed nearby in the water,

Speaker 1 (05:10):

It is really spectacular to be able to watch them both take off and land. Right, right. In front of us. Um, it’s kind of fun to see the sailboats, you know, uh, weaving in between them as well.

Speaker 2 (05:20):

What are things that you take into consideration as the architect and interior design specialists that you wouldn’t apply to a normal house?

Speaker 1 (05:29):

Yeah. Well, I mean, the waterproofing in particular was definitely different, right? Cuz we’re doing, um, we’re having to somehow, uh, create a barrier between the logs that are actually floating and the structure that’s above it. There’s radiant heat in here. So we we’re thinking about how to make sure that this place is comfortable. Um, you know, obviously there’s, we’ve got shades, there’s shading devices because it’s not just about, um, keeping it warm in the winter, but also cool in the summer because we are, we are facing west. So, um, it’s gonna bake. Um, I think that, you know, because the owner had been living in A’s called a more historic floating home previously, everything was gonna be a big improvement, but we definitely, we gave, we gave a lot of consideration to how tos insulating and making sure that we were providing more than is necessary just to really improve the comfort wherever we could.

Speaker 2 (06:17):

We started our tour on the front deck of the floating home. The siding of the home was a beautiful long plank, Cedar and had black window frames and doors. And there were pops of green from potted plants around the deck. If you wanna see exactly what we’re talking about, head to the Seattle design center website on the inspired design podcast page, and you’ll get behind the scenes images and be able to see all the little details that we cover.

Speaker 1 (06:44):

So the entry is a little bit hidden. Um, so you come off, you know, the, the docs are not open to the public, but people do wander down them. So we wanted to make sure there was still some privacy. So when you enter off of the side, there is a screen and it, and it’s heavily planted so that there is this really great. Oh, and there’s another, there’s a seed plant coming in right now, landing

Speaker 3 (07:03):

This time. Yeah. And they land right in front. Yeah. Wow. That is so fun to watch. Yeah. I don’t know. I wish we could ask them, does it ever get old? I don’t think

Speaker 1 (07:13):

So. I don’t think he does. I don’t think it canceled. So you kind of enter, it’s a little bit of a kind of hidden, um, entry way into this like kind of outdoor shaded covered area. Um, it is nice to have some protection from the sun when we need it. And then the, the, so the entry door is actually kind of around the corner from the side of the dock. Um, and as we walk in, you’re, we’re essentially in this kind of open living space. And so I think one of the things that a lot of people ask us for is kind of these wide open living spaces where living kitchen, dining, everything is just like one big room. And it was really important to the owners here that they did have some of that, um, openness, but they also had some individual room. So you have a place to go, right? It’s not it. I think sometimes that we, um, we can make homes that are like big bowling alleys now where it’s just one big open space. And actually there is something nice to have walls and, and, you know, um, a place to, I don’t wanna say go hide, but to, to get a little bit of a break. Um,

Speaker 3 (08:15):

And I can notice as we walk in, you know, you’ve got a nice little den off one side, but you know, you kept kind of the glass window effect. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (08:27):

Yeah. So it was important to like this, this essentially is, it is a iden is the perfect description. We worked with the owners on this, the custom cabinetry in this room for basically his office and TV space, um, library, uh, the, the windows are, um, still there’s a connection to the outside, but it also is a little bit, this room is a little bit more contained. Um, you’ve got a connection to, you know, through the glass, you said to the other interior spaces, but you actually, this can be a quiet space. Um, and a little bit, you know, um, a little bit more private, I would say than the living room that jus out closer to the lake. So this one is kind of separated a little bit further. So when it’s really, really busy, this is where you would go and, and hang out. And

Speaker 3 (09:09):

I like how you, the custom bookshelves are, there’s three rows from ceiling to about mid wall. So it almost opens up the floor space. Yeah. For a little bit more. Yeah. You know, you can see you’ve got printer it’s

Speaker 1 (09:23):

On totally it’s flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that was really fun with the home, you know, it is a, it’s the same footprint that it was originally, it’s a completely different layout in the interior, but it also is taller. So I think that it feels so much more spacious than the original floating home did because you’re filling that volume. And so I think doing things like adding the bookshelves that go to the top and don’t go to the bottom helps you still experience that volume and get, while you’re still getting a lot of storage and kind of places for those, um, those special objects

Speaker 3 (09:51):

Talking about having a open floor plan. Yeah. But then still keeping things divided. You have kind of a mini wall. Yes, yes. That you walk into. And instead of centering the art, it is like, right. Like I call right. Justified. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:06):

<laugh> yeah. The, I mean the owners have just incredibly wonderful taste in art and, um, and objects. And they’ve been collect a lot of these they’ve been collecting for years and years. So, um, it was really fun to make sure when we’re thinking about the spaces that things are, you know, the, the walls are designed to, to hold the art. Um, and that they, you know, they’re not just, if you blow out every wall, where do you put those things too? Right. Um, so I do think that there is a little bit of juxtaposition here. Where would the, the art is offset. It’s just kind of, I think that, that the home has this quiet peacefulness to it. Um, but that doesn’t mean everything needs to be, it’s not sterile. Right. And I think that there’s something to be said with this little offset that makes it feel a little alive.

The kitchen is you can see it’s partially open. So this kind of the sink and, you know, cause some of the open shelving is open to this little breakfast nook here mm-hmm <affirmative> and you know, it was interesting. We talked a lot about these two seating area or two eating areas I should say that are really close to each other, but this is, this is really, you know, we’re thinking about the light and how it’s coming in in the morning and where you wanna sit and have a cup of coffee versus where you wanna entertain your friends and have, have dinner.

Speaker 3 (11:15):

And so the, the breakfast nook is right off the kitchen and it’s a four seated table. Yeah. And then I’m standing in between and probably about like three to four feet away is an eight person dining table. Yeah. And so yeah, for an average person to be like, that is kind of close for two dining area, where else would you put them in? Right, right.

Speaker 1 (11:35):

Yeah. And I think too, it was like, it was really mattered that, you know, this, this dining area is centered on the windows. Anyone sitting at the dining table can, can see out to the lake. Right. If you’re facing, um, if you’re facing the windows, obviously you can see the space needle, you can see downtown, you can see all kinds of activity if you’re facing the other side, um, you can, you know, just turn and look at, uh, you know, queen a and the lake Ballard bridge.

Speaker 3 (11:59):

And then you’ve got your living room. Yeah. With, is that, is it gas?

Speaker 1 (12:04):

Yes, I think so.

Speaker 3 (12:06):

<laugh> but what would you call that’s pop, pop belly furnace.

Speaker 1 (12:09):

Yeah. It’s a furnace. It’s not a, it’s obviously it’s not a fireplace, but they wanted to have that kind of, that element still of, you know, being able to sit around the fire at night, but didn’t want to take up a lot of space. It does provide heat. So it just, that adds to the comfort too, in the winter. And

Speaker 3 (12:24):

It is it’s centered on, you know, your outward facing windows. Uh, so it does feel kind of like a centerpiece of that space. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:34):

Yeah. And I think that, you know, the proportion of the, um, of the living room a lot of time was spent on this cuz the layout was quite different, uh, previously. And so making sure that you could comfortably have these sofas that face each other, you know, that you could have a con like an area for conversation, you could have an area for gathering also for, you know, other objects and curios, without it feeling overly cluttered or, or too claustrophobic.

Speaker 4 (13:03):

Seattle design center is the premier marketplace for fine home furnishings, designer, textiles, bespoke lighting, curated art and custom kitchen and bath solutions. We are located in the heart of Georgetown open to the public Monday through Friday with complimentary parking. Our showroom associates are industry experts known for their customer service. We’re celebrating new showrooms and added onsite amenities, visit Seattle design center.com for more information about our showrooms and our find a designer program.

Speaker 2 (13:34):

We stepped back out on the front deck to start our tour. The homeowners had a beautiful taste and I couldn’t help, but notice for a small footprint, absolutely. Everything had a place. They really put Marie condo to shame the designers clearly worked closely and intentionally on exactly how the interior design of the floating home would complement the things they already owned. Every bit of space was maximized without feeling cluttered.

Speaker 1 (14:02):

One of the things that we work together with a lot, um, for all of the built-ins and there’s a ton of built-ins in, in the home are that, you know, we talked about specifically, what’s going to be kept in them. Right. So that making sure that everything’s sized appropriately. So when they moved back into the home, everything had a place, um, and everything had a place that was, was meant for that, that object. So like in the kitchen, you know, the glassware that they’ve got that shelf, it lights up <laugh> um, but you know, that glassware was, that was always what was going to be there. Right. So we were talking about, you know, in same, same with the, the small slim shelf up at the top of the kitchen, you know, there’s all the dishware that’s up there. We were talking about, you know, what are we putting there? And so the, the height of it mattered and, and really thinking about they had this amazing collection of, of things. And, and where did they go?

Speaker 3 (14:48):

And is it fun for you to work with clients who have such good taste obviously, but then who, you know, it gives you a lot to

Speaker 1 (14:55):

Work with. Totally. No, I mean, it’s really, I think that they are dream clients because they have fabulous tastes. Um, but also they enjoyed the process and trusted and trusted it while they had some strong opinions about where they wanted to keep some things. Generally they wanted our guidance. Right. That’s why they were working with us. Um, they didn’t come to us saying, telling us where everything was going to be. It was more of a we’d like bookshelves. They need to contain these things. You know, how, like, how are we gonna make that happen? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:26):

And how many renditions from beginning to what we’re standing in now, did you go through

Speaker 1 (15:31):

Oh, a lot, a lot. I mean, what was interesting, I would say is that the things that had the most renditions were not necessarily the ones that you would guess, um, the, the desk area in the den went through a lot of iterations, uh, the kitchen, the lower cabinets actually, which there’s only a few of them went through quite a few different iterations when we were thinking about exactly where the drawers were. Um, some things, you know, some things settled really easily. Everyone gets it right, and is really excited about it. Um, from the get and others just need a little bit of, um, finesse. And I think that they enjoyed that process and they enjoyed sitting with it. We would work together. They would come into the office and we would, you know, work out some sketches together. We’d provide some updated drawings and they might sit with them for a while. You know, once they’d had an opportunity to really absorb maybe, you know, one or two things would come back and we wanna make we’d wanna iterate on them. They definitely did the right thing that we love clients to do, which is to have everything figured out before construction starts. So they really spent, they spent the time up front to think through everything before construction started, which definitely helped it.

Speaker 3 (16:33):

So as we continue around here, you have another, you know, I guess that’s very important when you have a smaller space, is storage,

Speaker 1 (16:41):

A ton of storage, ton of built in shelving, um, ton of built in closets. We use the full height of the closet. Yeah. Um, of the full height of the space so that you’ve got drawers below hanging and then shelves for, you know, all the things that people put in an attic. We don’t have an attic, you know, there’s no basement, there’s, there’s no shed. So it’s, all’s a garage, there’s no garage, <laugh>, it all has to be in the house.

Speaker 2 (17:03):

One hurdle architects and designers have to get over with floating homes is you don’t want things to feel like a fishbowl, but how do you incorporate windows and a view of the outside without feeling like everybody has a view of your inside Michelle and her team took this hurdle very seriously and made some design choices that helped with this issue,

Speaker 1 (17:26):

The cooking part of the kitchen, where the, where the range is and the hood, this was a really fun, uh, you know, detail that we have this steel back splash and this custom steel shelving. But this is the really, the only private part of the kitchen. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But you can see that even if you are sitting here and you’re, um, you’re cooking that you can still see out of the lake and you can still, um, pretty much see everything that’s going on, but it does give you some privacy for people who were going by, they, they don’t see you

Speaker 3 (17:51):

Cause you don’t wanna be in a fishbowl all

Speaker 1 (17:53):

The time. Yeah. Right. You just, you do, you need some, you just, you need some relief. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:57):

Yeah. Yeah. And as real quickly as you’re standing here in the kitchen and there’s a side back door. Yeah. Um, I noticed there is another deck on the side yeah. Where they’ve got their barbecue and some, you know, rose bushes, but also steps going down into the lake. Yeah. Was that important for them to have access, to get, do they swim?

Speaker 1 (18:18):

They swim every day. So yeah. So there’s a connection. Um, the, when we get to their, to the, you, if you come up those steps and you go around the backside of the, of the home, there’s a connection, um, on the back door, through to the bathroom so that you can take off your wet suit and get in the shower and get ready for your day. So this is really, you know, I would, you know, the guest bedroom essentially. So, uh, now that the kids have moved out,

Speaker 2 (18:45):

The guest bedroom is another spot that feels private, but also has a great view. And a lot of natural light,

Speaker 1 (18:52):

This room, this room also is very private. Um, and yet it still maintains this connection to the lake through that window. So it’s just a really, I think it’s a really sweet, serene, um, room. Yeah. Great place to take a nap. <laugh>

Speaker 3 (19:05):

I mean, it is, I mean, you can still hear some planes and things going by, but you, yeah. You’re one step off the lake. Yeah. It’s nice and bright and open. Yeah. You don’t feel confined or

Speaker 1 (19:16):

Yeah. Yeah. But it still feels more private. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and like even looking out the window, um, you know, we put this green plantings in, in front so that this is, that’s where the dock access is. Right. So nobody who’s walking down is gonna just look in the window

Speaker 3 (19:30):

And you can’t see the neighbors either. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:32):

<laugh> yeah. And then, yeah, and then this bathroom’s kind of a little bit of a Jack and Jill style, so it acts as, you know, the powder roam and the guest bathroom. So, um, just a really fun shower, I would say super bright with the skylight above and just warm and inviting mm-hmm right. I would say

Speaker 3 (19:50):

Again, I’ve never gotten this it’s sterile vibe. Yeah. You know, you played really well with keeping it modern with the white paint and you know, light cabinetry, but that didn’t go to that sterile. It’s still very, yeah. Homey and comfortable and there’s a warmness about it.

Speaker 1 (20:08):

Thank you. I think it could go sterile really easily. Um, except for, I think that the, the, the lights, so the skylights and the windows are, you know, just bringing in, um, obviously anytime we can bring light in, in Seattle, we want it. Right. But here, especially because you get the reflection of the water too, it adds this kind of activity that you don’t get. And then also just, you know, the interior decor that they’ve got that brings in just a lot of personality that a lot of times we see people see pictures of a, of a home or a modern home before it has all of this personality, you know, in it mm-hmm <affirmative>, and it feels very sterile, but it doesn’t have to. Right. So how do you, how do do we make it really feel like it belongs to these owners?

Speaker 3 (20:51):

Right.

Speaker 1 (20:53):

This room is the most multi wow. Function multi-purpose room in the home. So it is, uh, part pantry part library in the owner’s office as well around the corner is laundry room. Yeah. And record collection. Yeah. <laugh>, he’s got everything, but again, in another skylight. So it just always feels sunny and bright in here. Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. So you can see that there’s actually a laundry

Speaker 3 (21:19):

Room. Oh, wow. Full size too.

Speaker 1 (21:21):

Yeah. Full size with a folding table.

Speaker 2 (21:23):

I was so impressed how Michelle and her team used this space, laundry room, workspace, storage, everything flowed. And it was also lit by beautiful natural lighting.

Speaker 1 (21:35):

We did spend a lot of time thinking about what bed, you know, where’s the lighting, how are we, you know, how are they gonna use this space? So obviously it’s, you know, primarily for sleeping, but there’s, you know, a place to sit and read a book if you’d like, um, and tell

Speaker 3 (21:48):

They avid

Speaker 1 (21:49):

Readers. Yeah, for sure. And then here is the kind of the connection to the outside. So they, you know, after a swim can come right in, go straight to the bathroom

Speaker 3 (22:00):

And then the, and then the primary bathroom. Yeah. Was it a request to have a full size tub? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:07):

Yeah. And unless there’s no shower in the primary bathroom. Right. Just, um, you know, I think one of the things, uh, with small spaces is you have to make choices and decisions that you don’t get everything. So this is not a five piece, um, primary bath, but it’s, it’s still very generous. It’s very comfortable. And you don’t need a shower here when you have one outside and you have one in the other bathroom,

Speaker 3 (22:29):

But two sinks,

Speaker 1 (22:30):

But two sinks. Yeah. Cause nobody wants to share a sink. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:33):

<laugh> <laugh>

Speaker 1 (22:35):

And, and you can see even there’s even a little window connection to the outside, so fresh air.

Speaker 3 (22:39):

So I mean, every room that you are in has either, if it’s a skylight or windows, some type of connection to the outside. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:48):

That we can walk around, just walk around the, the deck on the outside. If you wanna take a peek. I got my sunglasses.

Speaker 2 (22:55):

As we wrap up our tour, we head to the Southern facing side deck of the home and Michelle explains why this is such a special space.

Speaker 1 (23:03):

So yeah. So this is just a really fabulous place to sit, you know, because you, you do need shade right. In the, in the hot weather, we need shade. Um, but to experience just, you can see everything, um, from gasworks to the space needle. And, um, but it’s a really sweet gathering place where you can have a large party. And, um, they actually hosted a really fabulous party for everyone who worked on the project when it was done. And everyone brought their swimsuits and jumped, you know, jumped in the lake and it was a really great time.

Speaker 3 (23:32):

And so we’re standing on the deck that is part of the home, but then they have got an extension.

Speaker 1 (23:38):

Yeah. Wave break that’s okay. Yeah. And so that, that was here before, and a lot of this is grandfathered in like would not be allowed now. So, um, they can’t add onto it and they can’t change it. It’s just,

Speaker 3 (23:50):

It seems very secure. Can they ever feel it move? Yeah. You can feel it move. Okay. You can

Speaker 1 (23:55):

See, I don’t know if you noticed, but the pen and light, you can see that you can see it moving. So yeah, you can, you can absolutely feel it move. Um, windy days are in the winter. You’re gonna notice it more. Um, so it’s not, um, people who get CSIG, don’t get CSIG on a floating home. I don’t think. Uh, but it’s, it’s perceptible.

Speaker 3 (24:14):

So then as we walk around the outside

Speaker 1 (24:19):

And so, yeah, so here’s our door from, from the kitchen, uh, which is connected to another small eating area and the barbecue. And then if you keep going all the way around

Speaker 3 (24:34):

And another little eating nook.

Speaker 1 (24:36):

Yeah. So you can see a little storage area, um, laundry day. Yeah. And connecting to the, um, to the primary.

Speaker 3 (24:42):

And then this is where they keep their paddleboards. And

Speaker 1 (24:45):

That’s great. And, and the stairs are just over, just over there,

Speaker 3 (24:50):

Smallest little staircase over,

Speaker 1 (24:52):

Right. It is really the smallest stair.

Speaker 3 (24:54):

Oh, lovely.

Speaker 1 (24:56):

Yeah. I mean, how fortunate to be here all the time. I I’m, how fortunate are we to be right here right now? I know it’s pretty great.

Speaker 3 (25:02):

And it’s so funny. It it’s in the, after later afternoon here and you can just see the, the life on the lake right now. And you know, it probably changes through the seasons, but you always have that connection. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Speaker 1 (25:15):

Yeah. I mean, I think that we, we, everyone likes to come down in the summertime and it is really special, but it’s also amazingly beautiful in the winter. You know, the, because we’re all in Seattle, we, we need sun, we need light and it is just bouncing off the lake into the home and, and, and they get it here. It’s pretty

Speaker 3 (25:33):

Great.

Speaker 2 (25:34):

Standing out on the deck, watching the sea planes, the boats, the paddle borders, and peeking over the nearby floating homes. I can tell this is a tight knit community with a deep connection to the space. It’s quintessential Seattle. There’s a sense of peace. Both inside the floating home and out on the decks.

Speaker 1 (25:52):

There’s something really special about this one where they just they’re like, we just, what we care about most is living here on the water. Yeah. And how do we make that really special? We don’t need, it’s not about adding space and you know, stuff. It’s about, it’s about living here and experiencing this every day.

Speaker 3 (26:06):

Yeah. I mean, you did such a great job at, you know, keeping that connection. You didn’t overdo anything inside, so you missed the outside. It all blends very well.

Speaker 1 (26:18):

Thanks. That was the goal. <laugh> you can’t pretend that this amazing thing isn’t out here, right. The lake is so fabulous and, and you need to celebrate it, but also, um, it’s still home that needs, somebody needs to live in mm-hmm <affirmative> and, and everybody needs quiet time too. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:33):

Yeah. And you feel at peace inside and you can also feel, and at peace out here and, and I wanna be inside, but I wanna be out here too. I don’t know how they choose <laugh>.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

You know, this was obviously a true labor of love for the owners. And they, you know, they lived here for 40 years and probably were thinking about this for 10 before they did it. And, you know, and there were a lot of people involved to engineer and the contractor that they would also get feedback from. They had, they worked with the owners rep during construction. So there were, there were a lot of hands involved because they were willing to take the time and the energy to do it. Right. You know? Um, and it’s not, it’s not, um, fancy. Right. But the details are thoughtful. And that’s what I feel like makes it a, a special place.

Speaker 3 (27:19):

Yeah. Yeah. And even the materials, you know, the Cedar siding and the black windows, and you could tell that they wanted to keep that Pacific

Speaker 1 (27:31):

Northwest fuel.

Speaker 3 (27:32):

Yes. Yeah. But make it their

Speaker 1 (27:34):

Own, it needs to be special, but not so special that you don’t feel comfortable living in it. This is a place this, this home is lived in and loved. Right. And it, and, and that was really important that people would come here and feel welcome and feel at peace in that place here on the water.

Speaker 2 (27:49):

Thank you to Michelle Lindon and the homeowners for taking us through this peaceful Oasis on lake union inspired design is brought to you by the Seattle design center. The show is produced by large media. You can find them@larjmedia.com special, thanks to mechi Suzuki, Lisa Willis and Kimmy design for bringing this podcast to life for more head to Seattle design center.com, where you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media.

Speaker 1: The greenest homes that exist are the ones that are already here. Right. You know, we build energy efficient homes, cuz we are really good at it, but the greenest ones are already here. So let’s not tear down anymore houses. <laugh> right. Let’s keep ’em and preserve ’em and make ’em special. Again,  

Speaker 2: I’m Gina Colucci with the Seattle design center every week on inspired design, we sit down with an iconic creator in a space that inspires them.  

Speaker 1: You guys doing good? Anthony Gina, Hey Gina. We met,  

Speaker 2: We met this week on inspired design. We meet with Anthony and Abby mashed at their home on Seattle’s lake Washington. The home was built in 1919, and they’re putting the final touches on its restoration in order to make it net zero energy. The home is still under construction, but their goal is to move in in the coming weeks.  

Speaker 1: The second one step forward, two steps back, we clean it up and then we make it dirty again. And then we dig a hole and we fill a hole. It’s like hole, it’s endless. It’s endless for sure. That’s construction.  

Speaker 2: Anthony is CEO of dwell development. He and his wife make a great team. Anthony is passionate about net zero builds while Abby specializes in design on this project specifically, she’s focusing on preserving and restoring the most unique aspects of this 1919 home. Yeah.  

Speaker 1: So Abby did, Abby’s done all the design and for the house and the finishes and she’s also the historian of, of yeah. The house and, and trying to get all the details to be period appropriate. You know, uh, obviously it’s a huge project and we tried to make an old house new again. Right. It was a big task to make a hundred year old home with zero insulation and you know, not very energy  

Speaker 3: Efficient. We usually recommend facelifts to happen when you’re a little younger. So <laugh> yeah, we waited a little long. So it was a little nipping and tucking late.  

Speaker 1: <laugh> a lot of nip and tucking. So, and it’s a very unique, uh, uh, architectural style as  

Speaker 3: Well, especially for the Northwest. We don’t see a lot of stuccos around here. That’s why I, I spent time trying to figure out why, why do a stucco in Washington in, in 1919? Uh, I think just the, there were a lot of people moving up here and so the transplants came like they do and they bring with them their architectural flares of Mediterranean and stucco and  

Speaker 2: I’m from Southern California. So I know it all  

Speaker 3: Too well. Yeah. This is an eclectic Mediterranean, because it’s not a tutor like most people think, but it does have some of the tutor features in the inside. You’ll see that they, we, we tried to pop out some of the spaces, so they were less constrained. Like tutors can be mm-hmm <affirmative> they can be like dollhouses with little bitty gingerbreads and crannies. Yeah. Yeah. So we tried to make it a little more, um, modernized and comfortable.  

Speaker 2: It’s clear. This project is a labor of love. As I stood outside, admiring the stucco exterior, Anthony told us how he and Abby became aware of the home. It felt like it was almost meant to be,  

Speaker 1: We’ve known this about this property for about four years because we jogged by it every single morning on our morning run from our house in Columbia city, down to Stewart park and back. And so we’ve always been a big fan of it because it’s such a beautiful, interesting home and it was stately like, and,  

Speaker 3: And it’s one of the oldest on the Boulevard. So we had our eye on it a long time. It stands out for sure. It’s not amongst a bunch of other Mediterranean style homes. So it’s kind of iconic. And most people in the neighborhood know it, if we say, oh yeah, it’s that Mediterranean job with the castle down there. And they’re like, oh yeah, I know the shit toe.  

Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and well being a developer and trying to acquire land opportunities to develop and to, and to preserve homes too. So we had an opportunity to buy this and about four years ago and it fell through the owners, weren’t quite ready for it. And then they reached out to me again, uh, two years ago, two and a half years ago and they say, Hey, and we started negotiating with them and we made ’em an offer, uh, before they put it on the market. And they said, no, it’s too low. So we said, okay, well let us know if things change. And then they put on the market for a lot more than we offered and it sat and it sat and they lowered the price. They lowered the price. Well,  

Speaker 3: Of course the convergence zone of COVID they put on the market right before COVID hit. So it wasn’t so lucky  

Speaker 2: You guys, October.  

Speaker 1: Yeah. We October, October right before COVID and then they dropped and then they pulled it off the market. And so I called them, I said, Hey, um, would you be willing to reengage? And I would love to do a survey of the property, cuz we always thought there was two additional lots plus this house. And so we confirmed that there was, which means there’s value there to, for, from a development standpoint. And I liked the house, but it was very limited as far as, you know, um, a floor plan that, that we could see ourself living in. And so Abby came down, we looked at it and we go, well, let, let’s do this. Let’s just put one house in the back and let’s, let’s save this house. Let’s replenish shit. Let’s make it bigger and make it our own. And with the possibility when it’s done, if we really like it, we’ll move into it.  

Speaker 1: And we decided to make it a, a passion project for us. And in that our mission at dwell is to, you know, to always lead, always challenge, always strive to do more. And, and with this particular house we said, can we make it net zero? Cause that’s what we do. Right? We make all our homes, net zero energy and as energy ready, super, can we make an old house new again and make it energy efficient and make it smart and add technology and add all those things that we’ve developed over the years into an old house. We wanna show people these don’t need to go to the, to the landfills. You can actually preserve these old houses and make ’em new again. So we set out on this journey. Yeah. So we started what two years we, we bought it two years ago. It took a year to get planned and permitted. So we broke ground last August,  

Speaker 3: Winding the corner to a year.  

Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. Before we head in, I noticed this large branch up and over the main entrance way.  

Speaker 1: Yeah. I’ll let Abby take this one. So  

Speaker 3: This is a, so what we’re told is it’s a Virginia creeper and the old photographs that I found of the home back. So they, around the thirties, post depression, they sent people out at for jobs to photograph old homes in Seattle. And so the old photographs that I found in the archives, this is here and it’s so amazing. And at one point, the people from whom we bought the house, cut it back because they painted and they did a restoration paint job, but we, we painstakingly have, have kept it. So it will grow back. Wow. And it should, it should travel all over the front of the stucco and it, it’s pretty, it’s an beautiful red leave, you know, it’s an Ivy and it it’s, it’s, it’s meant to be there. And thus, we, we took great pains to keep it there.  

Speaker 2: So just to give you an idea of what we’re looking at, it’s a really old Ivy branch that’s growing up and over the main entrance and it sticks out against the white stucco. If you wanna see exactly what we’re talking about, head to the Seattle design center website on the inspired design podcast page, and you’ll get behind the scenes images and be able to see all the little details that we cover. Yes.  

Speaker 3: Oh, the roots flow all throughout this whole veranda out here, they’re out here. So we were really careful not to dig too deep when we pulled this, this had a layer of concrete underneath and we pulled that up and we put these pavers on just because they’re, they’re porcelain. They’re a little more than it was  

Speaker 1: Actually brick like there. Okay.  

Speaker 3: And we’re talking perimeter  

Speaker 1: About brick, the whole brick, and then they pour a slab concrete on top of it. And so we dealt take the other. And so it was like, and then, then we got to these root balls. The roots were, this thing were in all of the drainage. So we had to everywhere, gently nip and tuck and get it also and preserve this thing. And so now it’s starting to come back, as you can see, and starting to kind of live again,  

Speaker 3: We’ve been talking to it, you know, come on baby. You can do it. You can do it. We disrupted you. We did a little surgery. What a labor of love. Yeah, it really was. I mean, I was a little heartsick cuz I was worried about it when we had to cut it back to get the pain on. I was like, there’s a chance. And then we had somebody come by, who is a landscape architect. She took she’s really, really knows about plants. And she said, I think it’ll survive. They’re pretty hearty. Yeah. So it’s coming back. What a great staple.  

Speaker 1: But even these little, um, details like these, uh, metal brackets on the, on the down spouse, I mean we mm-hmm <affirmative>, those were all beat it up tin that we actually pulled off painted, scraped them and put ’em back in those cupper boxes as well. So that’s just a architectural detail that we kept, but really the gutters are new and the downspouts new and it goes into the drained system and out like it’s supposed to, but we wanted to keep the, you know, the integrity of what it looked like before. So those are just cosmetic, but I think they really make a difference.  

Speaker 3: Well, originally it had wood gutters and you can imagine that wood is not an appropriate material for gutters. Yeah. Because that’s water wood, not such good. And we did pull those off thinking. We would put those back, but they were so beat up by the time and they were rotten and we even saved them for about six months because we it’s really hard to part with all the old stuff we had, ’em all stacked up. And we were like, oh, we’re gonna Bondo these. And then we’re gonna do this. And, and our superintendent was like, are you guys crazy? Yeah. There’s some stuff that just doesn’t need to go back. Wood gutters yeah. Are not appropriate.  

Speaker 1: And I think the stucco is another big element while we’re out here, we can touch on this. So obviously it’s rare to see stucco back from that timeframe in, in the state of Washington. But when we had to remove the back of the house to do the addition, mm-hmm <affirmative> we had to get into it and pull it off. And this is actually is two inch thick Portland cement with a two inch rain gap behind it. So it’s called the rain screen. So there’s free flowing air and water allowed drain behind that wall if, if ever gets behind it. So what it did is it almost made this, this house, like with this iron clad, like shell on the outside of it, because it was zero insulation in these walls zero, it was originally built like that. This was originally built like this. And so we were trying to figure out with our energy modeling, how this affects the sustainability and the energy efficiency of the home.  

Speaker 1: And we’re finding out that it absorbs all the heat during the day. And so it doesn’t get to the building envelope itself. So all the heat in the summer doesn’t penetrate these walls. So you don’t feel it naturally naturally just somehow. And same with the cold, the bitter cold. It, it, that concrete absorbed it all and then releases it during the day or, or it releases the heat at night. So, so the fact that we stripped everything out, put insulation in we’re the energy model in this house is gonna be phenomenal. I mean, it had zero insulation, it was comfortable. And now we packed it with insulation, made it airtight. This is only gonna be this next layer of efficiency that we have never experienced before.  

Speaker 3: It was so naturally like that because we were through the heat dome, we would come down because we didn’t have our permits yet. So we would check in and do it last summer yeah. Of last summer. And we would be like, wow, it’s pretty comfortable in here. It’s not O as oppressive as it is outside. Yeah. So we knew going into this, that the stucco was so valuable and that we would have to emulate that in our addition. And we had to find somebody who could do the same, because this is a different texture than a lot of stucco that you see, right. It’s a much thicker, heavier texture. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And he did that all hand tr so it was all by hand, but  

Speaker 1: The wood behind it was pristine, looked like it was brand new. You saw the writing on it, where they did their measurements. The house paper was a hundred years old. This was beautiful. And it was like, no leaks, no water issues. You think around a window or a door, there’d be some failure at some point nothing. The house would just, the bones were perfect. And then the last thing on the front of the house is this Portico here  

Speaker 2: With reference a Portico is the section of your front porch that hangs over the front door. So you don’t get rained on.  

Speaker 1: As you can see here, it’s quite thick and you can see the seam here. It came in pieces and they set this down and put this top cap on it. Now we still gotta paint it and detail it out because we trying to figure out how to paint all these details and not make it look weird. But this wall is like this thick. And when we stripped it out the in, so you can see the inside at the backside, this thing is this huge concrete kind of piece they just set here. So I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. It’s kind of  

Speaker 3: Special. It’s pretty elaborate. Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely was a feature when they built this house. This whole front area was I think, supposed to look like a, you know, a Mediterranean Villa. And that’s what it feels like facing the lake. And obviously at the time it was built lake Washington was a street, but it was much quieter. So you can imagine that this was just an amazing pro out. And you feel like you’re, you’re in Italy,  

Speaker 2: Standing on the front porch, overlooking lake Washington on the sunny morning. It really did feel like the lake Como of  

Speaker 4: Seattle design center is the premier marketplace for fine home furnishings, designer, textiles, bespoke lighting, curated art and custom kitchen and bath solutions. We are located in the heart of Georgetown, open to the public Monday through Friday with complimentary parking. Our showroom associates are industry experts known for their customer service. We’re celebrating new showrooms and added onsite amenities, visit Seattle design center.com for more information about our showrooms and our find a designer program  

Speaker 2: We’re walking in. You can obviously still hear the construction going on. Yeah. But now you’re at the point where you’re just putting the fine details.  

Speaker 3: Absolutely. This is all the fun stuff. This is where the magic happens. Yeah,  

Speaker 1: For sure.  

Speaker 3: This originally was a second floor room. Oh wow. And so one of the things that we knew when we came in this house, it was quite constrained. So you have this magical entryway, but when you walked in, it felt very compressed. And so we, one of the things that I said before, I would live here and think about this house is that this floor needed to go and we needed to have this be a double height entry.  

Speaker 1: You see where that belly down was the bedroom justice, the bedroom do that, that wall dove right into. So these banisters cut off about halfway up and shorten down. And so this was the floor. And so we had to find someone to tool these exact pickets like this, and this was all custom done to match exactly what was here before. So we  

Speaker 3: Can, so if the original ended about three quarters of the way up and the last quarter all had to be made to match,  

Speaker 2: I love the Karen attention. Both Abby and Anthony took during this project. They honored the old, but enhanced it for a modern lifestyle. So now we’re entering  

Speaker 3: The  

Speaker 1: Dining room, the dining room, the formal dining room. Yeah. Front of the house. We tried to keep as original as, as possible. This is the original millwork that was on original windows, the original crown moldings that we pulled off, saved them, labeled them and put ’em all back. So it was really a, uh, fun challenge. We  

Speaker 3: Took, took them apart, taped them together, labeled them. We had a giant container out front. That’s no longer here that housed all of our millwork. The windows were taken out retooled, everything was fixed or all the hardware was fixed. And so one of the things that we had to decide in balancing this whole project is do we just replace all of the windows? Because naturally you think, well, there’s single pain, but it was important to me to maintain the original facade. And so we decided that we would put new windows in our addition and keep the old windows in the front. And though that will take some balancing with our en energy modeling. Right. It’s not necessarily the most efficient, there was some level of decision making that also had to do with the house. How do we maintain the house?  

Speaker 5: Yeah. And do you think you would be able be comfortable with it if the house wasn’t built with that stucco like cement layer?  

Speaker 1: I, I think it has a huge impact on, on the comfort level of the home for sure. But what we do is we guarantee the comfort level by all the things that we do and have been doing for the last 15, 20 years in building sustainable homes that framing on this home, which is rare for this age of a home is a two by six wall, which is really rare. Yeah. In an old house like this. So we knew we had plenty of opportunity to pack this with cellulose insulation to make it airtight. So, so we do all the things that we always do. But now once you get it down to the bones, now we know how to put it back together in the most efficient way possible, making it airtight and super insulated. And, and then the heating and cooling system came into play. And this is where her and I probably really only butted heads on one topic. Anthony  

Speaker 2: And Abby were able to agree on a balance between preservation and modern energy efficiency when it came to the windows and the front facade. But the radiators, that’s a different story.  

Speaker 1: This house had old radiators in it, which are great. It, one of those radiant heat, right? It’s comfortable. It’s neat. Had these big radi. You can see the holes on the floor where they used to sit. They take up wall space, but we were really trying to make this house, um, no gas on it. We didn’t wanna have gas heating and cooling in this house or hot water. And we partnered with Mitsubishi and Panasonic who worked with us. And I wanna give a shout out to those guys cause they actually donated all the heating and cooling systems and the, uh, fresh air, energy recovery ventilator for this house to make it really sustainable, uncomfortable. So they saw the value of what we were doing, cuz if we can pull this off and show other people how to make an old house new again, there’s a lot of value in that, right? So Abby wanted to preserve the heating, which is which I think is great. And I love it too, but we’re like, we’re gonna put state of the art controlled by us and our cell phones. We can control the heating and cooling this house. We don’t wanna have a heat dome. So we wanted cooling. We knew that. So we put a state of the art heating and cooling air handler heat pump system in this house. We did two of ’em actually one for each four.  

Speaker 3: Oh, when we set out, we thought for me, because I’m more of the preservationist, I was really, really committed to saving the radiators. I was like, that was like a deal breaker for me, that those radiators and they’re not even great for space planning. They were big, they were giant. Yeah. But I just had this feeling that they needed to be here. So we continued to have lots of conversations. So we decided, okay, we’re gonna keep them. And they’ll just be this backups backup system. And so then we started down the path of keeping all of these radiators with this backup system. And then we found that also we have to find the balance of co it was cost prohibitive to have a whole secondary system for a house. The funny thing about construction is once it’s gone, you sort of forget it was ever there. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so I just had to sort of go, okay, so once they get moved out, I will no longer remember them. <laugh>  

Speaker 5: Even outside outta my,  

Speaker 3: Even though I felt like I was gonna strap myself to one and chain outside. I mean, I, so, and hopefully they’ll live another day in some other place a woman had come by to a church. She took them and she, she took them for the church because they already have radiators. And she was super excited because she had a lot of variety to choose from.  

Speaker 1: Yeah. It’s kinda like we wanted cooling. We wanted cooling in the house and this system does both. So like, okay, does the heating, it does the cooling really efficiently. One of these things ever gonna go on? Why would we have a gas boiler backup system? It’s just like, you know, I love our, we have a little convertible bug that we drive a few weeks a year, but you don’t drive it all the time. Cause it does make sense there to Northwest it, it is not efficient. We finally got to a place where it made sense for us just to move on from that  

Speaker 2: We headed into the kitchen, which Abby and Anthony have hugely expanded from the original galley style kitchen. They managed to preserve the historic feel of the house while installing the creature comforts and personalized touches for their family needs in 2022.  

Speaker 5: So the old house, this is a massive island. I know  

Speaker 3: It is  

Speaker 5: The biggest  

Speaker 3: 15 feet lot.  

Speaker 2: <laugh> yeah. Like most other families, they spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So they added a giant 15 foot island and the rest of the kitchen will have updated modern appliances. Yeah.  

Speaker 1: The old house ended right here. So this was the kitchen you’re in the old kitchen right now.  

Speaker 5: And how much space. Okay. So you have a 15  

Speaker 3: Foot island in, there was kitchen. So the kitchen was about, is that right here to there? Yeah. 10 feet. It was a little galley style, small kitchen. So the rest, the 14 feet this way are all new.  

Speaker 5: Yeah. Wow. And you put in these beautiful beams.  

Speaker 3: These are, these are, yeah. These are structure to hold up the addition and we wrapped them and this is hundred year old Barnwood.  

Speaker 1: So this was, that’s actually a skin on the old beam that we made it and they did an incredible job cement it. So you could barely tell that’s an old beam. So that wood on the floor was brought in from Montana and our, our mill guys put that on that old glue lamb there to support the same one over there. So we wanted to kind of keep with the old kind of rustic kind of feel of a house like this, for  

Speaker 5: Sure. Wow. Yeah. There is a, you can, you, it feels like it is seamless, but it has the updated amenities that we all  

Speaker 3: Absolutely. It was a creature comfort. Yeah. Yeah. The creature comforts. I mean it, you, it, it had, it probably had an eighties remodel on a very modest kitchen. Kitchens were not big centers of the family. Like they are now. I mean, we spend a lot of time in our kitchen all together. That’s where we, we hang out and when we have parties, that’s where everybody converges is in the kitchen. Yeah. Those are the most popular and in our new development, that’s what I, I build the houses around the kitchen. I just feel like those are centers of people’s universes now. And especially with COVID too. I mean, that’s even reinforced that more. Yeah. So for this, for us, this was though it is massive. And a lot of people come over here and walk through and go, are you kidding me? <laugh> love it. It’s  

Speaker 1: Huge. Hey, we’re timing is perfect because you know, our daughters in New York going to school at NYU and our son is gonna be a senior. So in a matter we’re, it’s gonna be us. So  

Speaker 3: <laugh>, we’re sitting at this massively long island. That’s like, if you put in a  

Speaker 1: Fight that day, depending on how far away from you sit for another. Exactly. Yeah. So from this point forward it’s, it’s, it’s new construction. And we did a, uh, a slab foundation on, um, pin piles, cuz we didn’t wanna disrupt the soil around the back of the house. So we, so it’s all new going that way. A new, um, uh, dad, which replaced the old carriage house and then a new house behind it as well. So the, it goes street to street. So  

Speaker 2: We continue to walk through the house and Anthony and Abby point out different elements. They’ve preserved the old traditional doors. Now we,  

Speaker 1: We actually preserved the front and back door that were on this house. And there was a third door, which we moved over to the dad. So we kept these old traditional  

Speaker 2: SCOs.  

Speaker 1: This was the original crown molding that was in here  

Speaker 3: As well. All original millwork in this room, original doors, the original everything’s original in  

Speaker 2: Here, tiling on the floors,  

Speaker 3: Which all are tile from the 19, you know, turn cent, turn teens early teens.  

Speaker 1: That’s gonna be Marvel in the other fireplace, but this one we decided we’re gonna present.  

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this is, these tiles are beautiful  

Speaker 2: Light SCS.  

Speaker 3: A lot of the lighting is old. I love lighting. In my spare time, I spend a lot of time looking at lighting,  

Speaker 2: Old growth fur  

Speaker 1: The floors in this house were mahogany for the, the  

Speaker 3: Combination of mahogany in fur old growth fur. Oh.  

Speaker 1: Which is, which was really weird. And so we didn’t know, there was a combination of, we thought there was fur in like hallways and, you know, auxiliary closets so forth, but it was all stain the match. And there was all inlaid in certain ways where it was all pattern. I was like really cool. And then we sanded these floors and we realized that there was fur inlaid with the Maha that was stain to match. So it was like, whoa. So it kind of threw us for a loop. So all this is old girl fur that Abby procured that matches the fur that was in the original house. So when this is all sanded and done and stained, it’s gonna look like,  

Speaker 3: It’ll look the same. It’ll look. Exactly, exactly. And that was really important because we started looking for mahogany, which is difficult to find. And it’s mainly from rainforest and it’s not there, there there’s nothing that you can find that’s sustainable. So we really wanted to find something that was still sustainable  

Speaker 2: All while balancing each of their two top priorities, a net zero home and preserving as much of the original integrity of the home is possible.  

Speaker 1: Um, but, but behind the walls, you mean, you’ll see lots of little wires poking out and mm-hmm <affirmative> so we’re gonna have speakers. And the whole house is wired for a complete home management system to run the entire heating, cooling, you know, security, you know, the doorbell cameras everything’s run on one app. So this, and we’ll have a key pad in the kitchen, you know, so you can control and see everything. So this house is gonna be able to, uh, you can control the solar, you can see how much solar’s gonna be coming into this property cause we’re putting solar panels on. So that was really important for me to have a house that is is efficient, but also can, can live into the future as well. And, and the clean energy that this house is gonna produce, hopefully will offset the energy it takes to kind of keep it going.  

Speaker 1: Yeah. So we’re really close the energy. Model’s gonna be real close to making it net zero, if not, it’s gonna be darn close. So, but, but really to be able to manage a home today is important. And having the ability to manage it, you know, uh, is, is crucial because you can, if, if it’s not being efficient, then you can make adjustments to the heating and cooling to make it more efficient. Right? You can balance it. You can make, have fresh air coming in at certain times and, and really make the home really, really comfortable. That’s the important thing is the home needs to be comfortable. The fresh air needs to be filtered all the time and, and, and breathing. We don’t want there’s no toxins, no VOCs added to this house. No, no, no off gassing of anything. Cause that’s part of what we do. We don’t want to breathe that’s those are bad. Yeah. So all the stuff that we do is, is what we’re doing here too.  

Speaker 2: So even standing within the house and looking out of the windows, you were struck by how gorgeous the flowers were. It was almost like you were surrounded by an old English garden.  

Speaker 1: Those roses were all in the backyard, up, down the side. And they were,  

Speaker 3: They had a pretty immense rose garden because they of course had a street to street lot with an amazing yard of flowers and established. So  

Speaker 1: We saved them all. We, we did, we transplant ’em and put ’em right there,  

Speaker 3: Much to our guys. They were like, are you crazy? Yeah, we’re saving all these. They had the most amazing height ranges out there and we’ve saved as many as we could possibly find spots for.  

Speaker 1: So those are temporary. We’re gonna put ’em somewhere so they can live on longer. So this yard originally sloped down from, from that patio about, at, at six feet down to the street. So it wasn’t like a steep slope, but it was a gentle roll down and it made the house feel very like when you walked out the street, you kind of, your eye went to that beautiful lawn and it went up to this house and it was very grand feeling. And what my goal was is that I wanted to have this nice level to get this feeling of not being so connected to the street, get above it a little bit. So we’re in the middle of adding this two tiered, um, kind of like stack rock wall out there. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, that’s gonna create some layers and it’s gonna bring up that, that total yard about five feet. So it’s gonna be completely level out to the end. And then it’s gonna have these two step stack stone walls, which are very English kind of looking, it might look appropriate for this architecture and then we’re gonna landscape around it. So we’re gonna have a flat yard. It is gonna cut off the street, but it’s gonna still enhance the lake  

Speaker 3: Well. And, and when this home was built in 1919, that street wasn’t as busy. So being mindful of how things have evolved, mm-hmm <affirmative> we needed more buffer. This is a, a major it’s busy street. Now it’s, you know, there’s a lot more cars on the road than there were in 1919. So of course having a little more buffer when it flowed to the lake, the, our yard just flowed right down to the street. It just felt like now to give us that little bit of noise buffer, as well  

Speaker 2: As our tour was winding down, Anthony explained how this project has energized him to take on more traditional home restorations and make them energy efficient.  

Speaker 1: I wanna do a net zero energy Victorian. I wanna do a net zero energy. Mid-century modern. So let’s flip the script now and let’s go back to traditional architecture, but do it the way we do it. Right. Which is efficient and not make it, not everything has to be modern to be energy efficient. We have this symbol of green is modern. It’s like, yeah, that’s the story we’ve been telling, but it doesn’t have to be the story that continues. Right? So, so that’s what we’re trying to do. This is just step one. And uh, we design our next new single family home. So you’re gonna see a Victorian an Italian night who knows, right. Craftsman. My goal is, is that we can show all these builders out there and people who own old, beautiful homes that, you know what don’t turn ’em down. You know, we can show you how to make ’em net zero energy and bring back the details and the comfort that that you’ve been missing because these houses are very special.  

Speaker 2: Thank you to Anthony and Abby meshk for taking us through their beautiful restoration and opening our eyes to the possibilities and promise of net zero energy homes. Inspired design is brought to you by the Seattle design center. The show is produced by large media. You can find them@larjmedia.com special, thanks to meet Jesus Suzuki, Lisa Willis, and Kimmy design for bringing this podcast to life for more head to Seattle design center.com, where you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media. On the next episode of inspired design, we head to the water to meet Michelle Linden architect and interior designer who takes us through an iconic floating home.  

Speaker 6: There’s so much activity that you can see just sitting in this living room. You can see right now, look at the pirate ship that’s coming by, um, for Seafair. So in the summertime, it is very active out here. All the fun things that are happening on the lake are happening essentially in your front yard. 

Speaker 1:        For me, architecture is about making other things stand out and not so much. The architecture itself nature is the teacher.

Speaker 2:        I’m Gina Colucci with the Seattle design center every week on inspired design, we sit down with an iconic creator in a space that inspires them this week on inspired design. We meet up with Jim Olson of Olson. Kundig architects at his cabin in long branch, Washington, about an hour and a half Southwest of Seattle.

Speaker 1:        And my grandparents got this property in 1912. And the only way to get here was by boat. They’d come on little passenger ferries out to the long branch dock and then row in their rowboats over to their property. But it’s just such a perfect view. Mount Rainier is right across their framed perfectly, uh, between those two islands

Speaker 2:        With over a century of family history. Jim spent summers here as a child and when the original cabin burnt down in the 1960s, his father gave him a unique opportunity, the perfect project for a kid with a budding interest in architecture.

Speaker 1:        And then my parents, uh, later on built a house next door. And when they built their house, they had to tear down what was the bunk house. It was a place to send the teenagers out into the woods to get rid of them. And so I was 18 years old and uh, first year in architecture school and my dad gave me $500 and said, go build a new bunkhouse. So the first part of our cabin was the bunkhouse that I built when I was 18. Honestly, I think it was probably the best opportunity I ever had in my life to think about things as one thing, but actually to make it real. That’s what architecture is all about. And that was my first experience. And, uh, it just meant so much just little things that happened to you, you know, early on, you know, he always said, uh, if you can, uh, make your a career out of what you’d like to do as a hobby, you’ll always be happy. And I liked art and I liked building things. Architecture was kind of the perfect balance of all that for me. And so he did encourage that. It really, it really meant a lot

Speaker 2:        From the beach we turned toward long branch cabin, comfortably nestled amongst the trees with a perfect view of the water in the mountains.

Speaker 1:        If you know about fro the idea, the best location is on a hill overlooking water facing south. And this does that cuz south is, is that way. And it’s just sort of the most favored orientation and situation. I didn’t realize that at the time, but it was a lucky coincidence that, uh, that we did, we did end up facing that way, you know, new year’s and Christmas, the setting sun comes directly into the living room and goes all the way through the house to the very end and sort of like stone hands or something <laugh> that wasn’t planned either, but it’s just such a wonderful coincidence. We, you know, architects plan all the time to make this happen and that happen. And then there are these things that just happen by coincidence. And sometimes they’re the best ones

Speaker 2:        For a home of a very well known architect. Long branch cabin is very unassuming. Like it perfectly blends in with its surroundings and you have to stop and notice the angles and the wood and the glass. Otherwise you might just miss it. As we walked up to the house, Jim talked about how there are rooms outside and inside the house

Speaker 1:        In a, in a lot of ways, this field is the living room of the house. There are other little rooms around, there’s a, a, there’s a meadow up in the woods up there and that’s like a little room. And then I’m gonna take you to another room here. These trails have been here forever. I mean, they might have been here for like a thousand years as far as I know, but I know, you know, at least early 19 hundreds and I just love ’em. And so I, I always have people park down below and walk up the trails because it’s so much nicer. Yeah. You get the, sort of the mood of the place. These are all huckleberry, uh, bushes and they’re, you know, they’re really good. They’re, they’re ripened the end of summer. So there’s a little place up here are where, uh, you can, you know, viewing Mount Rainier and we, we have a little garden that’s, we’re just getting going, but, um, it’s nice to have these little outdoor rooms mm-hmm <affirmative> so this is like a room in the house.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. And from here you can kind of see, um, the, the original cabin has Moss on it and that’s intentional. I mean, I, I, I could scrape it off or I could replace the beams and all that, but I like the fact that it looks old and weathered because it is mm-hmm <affirmative> and then it makes the, you know, the layers of history can be read more easily by, um, you know, just letting it, letting it decay a little bit. And I, to, when it gets to the point where it has to be replaced, I’ll just replace it and we’ll start over. But

Speaker 2:        <laugh>, as we stand in front of the cabin, Jim built in the sixties, it’s clear the structure embodies Jims, enduring philosophy as an architect.

Speaker 1:        You know, I kind of grew, I grew up up in Enumclaw in the woods and then here in the woods and I’ve just loved just being out in nature and listening to the birds and, you know, it’s just, it’s just a wonderful thing. And so this little house was, um, just intended to be just a little place to just sit and just be part of the natural world. Um, and it still is that way really. So that’s how it started. And, and I think in a sense, you know, my whole philosophy of an architect is, is integrating, you know, life with nature as much as possible. And that was really what that house was all about. And it’s sort of continued, uh, you know, I haven’t really changed my mind on that <laugh> and especially in today’s world, I’m just more and more, uh, adamant about, um, you know, working with nature as much as we can. The wood is just wood that’s weathered. And it’s the, essentially the color of, you know, some of the weathered wood on the trees and the driftwood on the beach and, and all that. So, you know, it’s just like, it grew here

Speaker 2:        Over the years, Jim has expanded the cabin building wings of the house as his family grew with major renovations in the 1980s and early two thousands

Speaker 1:        In the early 1980s. Uh, we out kind of outgrew this one little house. And so we added and we wanted a bathroom. So we made a little outhouse that actually had real plumbing. And that’s this little building is that, and we put it up the stairs, it’s like a little template, had a bathtub, a sink, and a toilet in it. And it had all glass ceiling <laugh> and, uh, it was wonderful little spa kind of thing. Yeah. <laugh> yeah. And then we had a bedroom that was another little building and it had a, a glass dome over the bed. So when you woke up in the morning, you could look up and see the trees and you’d see birds go over and things like that. And then at night you saw the stars. So it’s really, uh, you know, three little, little build, separate buildings out in nature.

Speaker 1:        The first was teenagers getting away from everybody. And the second was, uh, expanding to, you know, accommodate a more mature life and, you know, kids and friends and all that. Then as we got older, getting up in the middle of the night, in the little house, over there, walking across a deck in the rain and up these stairs to the go to the bathroom seemed a little much. So we added another wing and that was the new, uh, living room, which you can see right there. So that was done about, uh, about 2000. And I’d been dreaming about having this room, like a real living room in the house for maybe five or 10 years before we actually did it. Oh, wow. And so I’d be sketching and thinking, and wouldn’t it be great to be up in the trees? So we did that and then we did an indoor bathroom here, so that, uh, and then it connected the bedroom to the rest of this.

Speaker 1:        So we had a bedroom living room, kitchen, and bathroom all in, under one roof. So that was nice. <laugh> and then this became like a little Playhouse for my granddaughters. And then it’s the original kind of now it’s now it’s my, uh, I have my, the elliptical up there. And so it’s, it’s the, the gym essentially. So now we’ll go inside and this is the everything’s original, the stain, hasn’t it. We stained at once in 1958, never stained it again. And I just, you know, I love the way it looks. Yeah. It gets, it changes color, you know, over the years,

Speaker 2:        Just before going inside, we’re standing on a staircase heading into the main house and I’m stopped in my tracks by this giant furry,

Speaker 1:        There is a tree growing in the middle of the stairway, going up to the fitness center, we call it <laugh>. And, uh, the tree keeps growing and the, uh, stairway buckles and things as the tree grows. And so we have to keep widening the circle, uh, around the tree. You know, it’s kind of the attitude here. Nature wins when there’s an argument, nature wins, we accommodate nature as opposed to the other way around, but look at the, see the color of the bark, you know, there’s this kind of brown, but then see how it’s, uh, it’s where it’s weathered. It’s kind of a silvery, uh, color. And then there’s the green Moss on that. I was gonna say like, yeah, light, but you know, there’s a lot of, uh, yeah. Color. And then the SAP is kind of a, you know, shiny, but a lot of times as the bark weathers, it gets silver and it actually is almost metallic or something.

Speaker 1:        Wow. And so, you know, the house, uh, when we did the 2003 edition, we, uh, started using metal with it. And so the, uh, galvanized metal columns are silver, like the, uh, bark on the trees, you know, it’s, uh, very much the same color and it kind of sparkles. Yes. And so you get that sparkle and then you get the sparkle off the water too, but it’s just, you know, NA I guess nature is the teacher here. You know, I spend more time, I think looking at nature than I do looking at other peop other architecture, couple of things that I think are really important here are the verticality of the fur trees. And they’re, you know, they’re very simple, they’re straight. And then how the organic plays off of that and the, the straight lines help the organic shapes to be appreciated more, I think.

Speaker 1:        And then, uh, looking across the bay, how the islands are defined by the straight line of the water in the beach, and especially Mount Rainier, you know, there’s this very simple, straight line that the water defines, and then you have the, the big mountain coming up from that. And so the straight line underlines and is a point of reference that, uh, is compliments the shape of the mountain. Like for me, architecture is about making other things stand out and not so much the architecture itself, even though, you know, of course you want it to be beautiful and that works with nature. And when we go inside, you’ll see how trees and things are framed by the rec to linear, uh, windows on the inside. And it, the same thing works with art. So in a lot of the art houses that I’ve done, you know, the columns and beams and things, you know, help, uh, frame the art pieces, which are quite often very, uh, organic in, you know, what’s going on in them.

Speaker 3:        Seattle design center is the premier marketplace for fine home furnishings, designer, textiles, bespoke lighting, curated art, and custom kitchen and bath solutions. We are located in the heart of Georgetown, open to the public Monday through Friday with complimentary parking. Our showroom associates are industry experts known for their customer service. We’re celebrating new showrooms and added onsite amenities, visit Seattle design center.com for more information about our showrooms and our find a designer program.

Speaker 1:        I mean, to me, everything is it’s like the landscape, the building, uh, you know, the furniture, the art, it, you know, it’s all one thing to me it’s best when it’s really, uh, connected together and they sort of inform each other. So everything affects everything else. So, uh, this used to be the deck right here. So where we’re standing, uh, was the deck of the original cabin. And it ended here, you can see the outside of it.

Speaker 4:        And this was, yeah. This one isn’t so weathered the, no, we stained that. We restain that.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. We stain that. And, uh, then, so you step down to the living room, which kind of helps you kind of, you know, look down into the, into the beach, but notice the window at the end there. How, um, you, it feels like there’s no glass in the window.

Speaker 2:        Well, you’re standing there and it, you notice something is different, but you can’t put your finger on it and you almost have to stand there for a minute to really let your eye realize that it doesn’t look like your windows in your house. It’s almost like a secret.

Speaker 1:        There is no glass in the

Speaker 4:        Window. So you step down into like,

Speaker 1:        No, there really

Speaker 4:        Are we gonna fall out? No,

Speaker 2:        I know there’s no frame to these windows. The window goes all the way past where the floor begins. So it feels like you could be inside or outside almost like a covered patio.

Speaker 1:        Sometimes people come in and they think there’s no glass in the window because

Speaker 4:        You can’t see the bottom.

Speaker 1:        Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Uh, the bottom, uh, is the, the glass is held down below the floor and then this column on the side and the beam going across there hide the edges of the glass. So when you first look at it really, uh, it looks like there’s no glass in the window. Yeah. And it’s, it’s just a way of connecting the inside with the outside where you just subliminally feel like you’re outside when you’re here. And some people do come in and they say, oh, I thought this was indoors it’s outdoors.

Speaker 4:        And when you were dreaming about making this space, is that

Speaker 2:        Something that was in your original concept

Speaker 1:        Joins? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really important to me to try to, and then see the framing, like the trees help frame the view of the beach mm-hmm <affirmative> and then the architecture works right with the trees to frame the beach. Then the beach is going at an angle rather than just straight across. Right. Another thing I’m really into is proportions getting these sort of vertical proportions. And I think it, you know, comes from like classical Greece and Egypt and all, but also just the woods here, because what, you know, we’re, we’re in this situation where the, these vertical, uh, trees, I think they inspired the, you know, the early, uh, civilizations, uh, trees obviously. Yeah. And, uh, you know, they do give a sense of elegance that mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, I think is really important. So that’s that, and we can walk down here.

Speaker 2:        We took a few steps down into the main living room and Jim showed us a chair. He had designed,

Speaker 1:        We call it the long branch chair and a

Speaker 2:        Quick description of the long branch chair. It’s very simple, actually only three pieces. You have one piece of wood that makes the back, that’s tilted at a angle, and then you have the seat that tilts up a little bit. And then another piece that comes out of the back for support Jim designed it so that it was comfortable when you sat in it. But also very simple. If you wanna see what it looks like, head to the Seattle design center website and click on the podcast page, there’s all types of behind the scenes photos.

Speaker 1:        It’s, uh, just a chair to sort of sit out on the decks and then have one in the living room. And, uh, again, the ADOC chair, uh, experience informed the angle where you sit and I just wanted it to be, you know, really simple. So just with like one slab of wood and then, uh, you know, one thing to hold up the seat and the seat kind of candle levers on both sides. And there’s a little, uh, extension of that, of that vertical that holds up the seat in the back that keeps the chair from tipping over backwards. And that’s, that’s it. So it’s the least amount of pieces. See, there’s just that little thing.

Speaker 4:        So it’s, it’s four pieces of wood Uhhuh, the, the main slab, that’s the backrest, right? The, the second

Speaker 2:        Slab that says the seat, and then you’ve got the triangle underneath the seat Uhhuh or the slab. So I’m triangle and then the piece in the

Speaker 1:        Back that, yeah, that’s it. Yeah. My wife is a reader. And so she’s always sat in this chair and reads and you know, when you sit in that chair, you’re just, you’re like right there with the squirrels and the birds and it floated. Yeah. And then it’s good light. Paul ki home is the designer. It’s a, it’s one of my favorite chairs. So simple, you know, it just has the, you know, that the, the leather piece and then the legs. And that’s it. I just love that chair. And it’s beautiful in silhouette

Speaker 2:        Chairs are an important part of long branch. The ability to comfortably sit and read and write and design and relax are important to Jim’s overall vision for the cabin. Most of the chairs Jim has designed himself. However, there are a few that he has picked up along the way in between the kitchen and the living room. There was another table. And around that table were these two chairs. They looked like chairs. You might see in a 19th century schoolhouse,

Speaker 1:        I just got these. And it says Boeing company. I just discovered that after I brought it home. Oh yeah. It says Boeing company. And so, but aren’t, they beautiful for me? Like I know it when I see it, my granddaughter and I were down going through these antique places and way in the back in a, you know, just a sea of, of chairs. It wasn’t, they weren’t like on display or anything. I saw one of these and I just said, there that’s the chair right there. And there were two of them, which was just perfect.

Speaker 2:        It’s like, almost like a physical reaction.

Speaker 1:        It is, you know, it, I mean, you kind of know, know it when it’s, when it’s the right thing. Yeah. So now we’ll go back to, um,

Speaker 2:        As we head to the next room, I’m struck by how calming the energy of the houses.

Speaker 1:        So this used to be the bedroom and it was a standalone room. The bed was here and your head of the bed was there. And so if you lie down in the bed, you can look up and see, yeah. And then we could look at the stars from the, from bed <laugh> it was great.

Speaker 2:        And are these the original,

Speaker 5:        You know, you kind of, it’s like, you can tell that that was

Speaker 1:        Outside. That was original. That was outside. Yeah. Yeah. Light fixture. So this is kind of interesting here, cuz you have, uh, 2000, these columns are 2003. These columns are 9 19 58 and this is 1980. You have these layers of history, you know, you can look around the place, the advantage of adding on rather than tearing things down and building new is that you get these sort of layers of, of time that you can read when you’re in a place like old European buildings, when they’ve been added on all these times, you kind of can tell the that. I think it’s great.

Speaker 2:        This cabin is like a beautiful patchwork of time. As we head into the hallway. It’s almost as if time stands still one side looks out into the forest and the other looks out onto the clearing and the bay.

Speaker 1:        So this was all just outdoors. Oh wow. And so now we’re seeing the outdoors of our former bedroom. And so you can, you can walk by and look into the old bedroom and there are blinds if somebody’s sleeping there and that makes into a bed too,

Speaker 2:        We walk further into the hallway and get a real grasp of what Jim is talking about. We you’re in a hallway and you have a window to your right. Yeah. That looks in, out into the forest. But then as you turn and look through the window into the bedroom, there’s another matching window and you can still see the beach,

Speaker 1:        See the beach, the beach, right? Yeah. So, yeah. And so there’s a courtyard back here that gives you privacy. But you know, like I’ve sort of developed this thing about long hallways and most of my houses have these long hallways and quite often something natural is at the end or, or maybe an art piece. But while you’re walking, it’s sort of like it’s sort of ceremonial or something. But uh, as you walk along, you’re focusing on a beautiful composition. That nature has supplied. We can go out here first. So there’s a little courtyard and we did the courtyard because when you’re out in the woods at night, it’s awfully dark mm-hmm <affirmative>. And uh, you always wonder if somebody’s gonna walk up and look in the windows. And so we made this courtyard, it’s like a little private room that has a gate and everything. So it’s, it’s really secured.

Speaker 2:        The courtyard that we’re in is fenced off, but you can’t see the fence because of the passage of time and the greenery that’s grown. And two other walls of it are the home. So you feel like you’re enclosed and, and safe in this space

Speaker 1:        Here. We were in the woods essentially. And uh, you can look through the house and see the water, but if it’s summer and there are jet skis and noise out there, you don’t really hear it back here. Or if it’s windy, this is not windy back here. So it’s really nice protective. Yeah. It’s a kind of quiet, nice little place to retreat to

Speaker 2:        Looking back to the long hallway, you have these beautiful other chairs sitting with a little, uh, center table and, and lamp and they compliment their backdrop of the outside. Yeah. And that could be

Speaker 1:        A picture. I know. Yeah, exactly. And they’re, you know, again for reading they’re they have the they’re back to the window, but when you’re reading, that’s the perfect thing to have the light coming over your shoulder and then you see the water in reflection in the other window. So that’s, that’s something that I have to say. I didn’t really plan it, but it’s one of those things that we were talking about. Some wonderful things just happen without you realizing you’re doing it. And especially if it’s really sunny out and it’s a lot of bright light on that side, then you get reflections on those windows and it it’s just like, it’s like a watching a, a movie or something behind that’s actually what’s going on behind you. Yeah. But this is a great place to have lunch or, you know, have a drink or something. Yeah. Or just come and read

Speaker 2:        On it. As we come back into the hallway of the house, Jim dives, deeper into his philosophy of bringing the outside inside and blending those two worlds

Speaker 1:        Moving back in into out now we’re, it’s like, we’re going through the woods and this is the woods here, cuz it’s all dark. Yeah. And it’s, and then you’re you come out of the woods, just like you would, if you were on a hike somewhere and you come to what I would call the clearing and then it’s lighter and higher and more open. And so, so this is the, the bedroom, ah, and the, you know, it’s funny because the old bedroom, uh, had windows on both sides and then the skylight above and it was great, but you always had this funny feeling that is someone out there. And so then I realized that, you know, there’s this whole theory about prospect refuge. People are most comfortable and animals, cats do this too. They always pick a corner where they have their backup against the wall, but they can see everything.

Speaker 1:        And so we, we put the bed in an alcove, that’s surrounded by, uh, you know, wood. And then the view is, is out this way. And you feel perfectly private and perfectly safe here, but you can, you know, you get this w this one big wall of glass that focuses on the view bedroom should be cozy and you should feel kind of protected when you’re in bed asleep. And then it’s nice to wake up and see something beautiful. The thing about architecture is it just takes your whole life to learn how, you know, all these different things that, um, you know, human nature and how, um, instinct and all those mm-hmm <affirmative> you just start realizing a lot of things over time. This is another magic window because mm-hmm, <affirmative> notice there’s no glass in that window. Oh my gosh. Or it looks like there’s you can just, yeah, it looks like there’s no glass and you get a big smudge.

Speaker 1:        It drops off and then it kind of disappears up there. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and then this is the, the other one. See the floor, uh, yeah, just disappears into the trees. And if you stand, uh, stand right here, if you stand right there, okay. And look out, you, you can’t see where the glass is attached anywhere. Not at all. And the, I, this is just an old plumbing pipe, but I put it here to hide. I’m just experimenting. I’m I’ll get a bronze one someday. But, um, the idea is to have the, this pipe is hiding the actual corner where the glass comes together, cuz that would give away the, the secret of, of what’s connecting the glass.

Speaker 2:        Jim has been experimenting on this property since he was 18 years old. It’s really a full display of his playful creativity. If he hadn’t told me it was a plumbing pipe, I would’ve never noticed,

Speaker 1:        You know, someday I’d like to have a room where you can you walk in and literally you can’t tell that there’s any division between you and outdoors. And this is kind of a next step of this one particular thing. A three dimensional goes around a corner as opposed to just a flat plane since no one’s ever noticed that that’s what it was. Who cares? And plus I like the idea anyway. Yeah. So maybe I’ll never change it.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. As I’m marveling at the magic windows, Jim draws my attention to another one of the cabins intentionally placed comfy chairs.

Speaker 1:        Just sit in that chair for a second and okay. And just so you know, so it’s just a place to sit.

Speaker 4:        It’s very quiet too. Cause,

Speaker 1:        And this is a nice place to, to read or sketch or do something. And then you just start to, you know, once you just sit somewhere and look out into a view or something, it starts to, it takes a while, but you just really get into it. Yeah. You start noticing things you’d never noticed before. And then these ferns have just grown here by themselves. <laugh>

Speaker 4:        Ferns are amazing. I love ’em. I just clipped my own ferns back for the first time and got to watch them like yeah. Grow within like two weeks. They were the

Speaker 1:        Little ones come up the alien like little. Oh, they’re so cute. Yeah. And it’s a little curly top <laugh> yeah.

Speaker 4:        Yeah. There is something special and calming

Speaker 1:        Uhhuh about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4:        It’s almost like watching a live painting because Uhhuh, you can see the wind brussel leaves, but you can’t hear it.

Speaker 1:        No. Yeah.

Speaker 4:        And so

Speaker 1:        I did set up a, I have a listening thing with a microphone in the tree. Oh <laugh>. And so cuz I wanted to, I was thinking the only thing missing is the acoustics. It didn’t work the way it was supposed to and I’m not a technical person. So I thought, you know, I’ll just do it someday, but

Speaker 4:        Um, well, and I’m sitting here longer and you said, okay, these ferns grew by themselves. And then you see kind of the younger growth then

Speaker 1:        It’s coming by itself

Speaker 4:        As your eye works through the forest. There’s this giant trunk. Yeah. That is, I, you know, doesn’t, it’s obviously a, a, a dead tree at this point. Right. And

Speaker 1:        It’s an old growth tree. Yeah. That was struck by lightning maybe about mm, 25 years ago. And uh, it was one of the few, you know, really old growth trees on the property. So there’s a great big log, giant log out in the woods there. And it goes all the way from there all the way up to the road that you drove in on. And, and it’s being, it’s being a, a home for little bugs and mice and new life, all kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4:        How was anyone here when that happened?

Speaker 1:        No, uh, no, we weren’t here <laugh> I just remember coming out and thinking, my God, the tree fell down, you know, the tree and it split way up high. So, but it’s sort of like a cathedral when you look out there and that’s sort of the centerpiece, you know, and then you have the ones on the side.

Speaker 1:        So now we can go back and look at the BA the old bathtub and all that. So back here, uh, basically, um, when we added the living room on, we, we did just a simple structure that went out on one on the water side to the living room. And on that side, you’re up with the birds and the treetops mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then because the, of the slope at the other end of this long, uh, building you’re burying into the hillside. So we had to carve out the hillside in order to make this part. So there you’re, you know, you’re, it’s like, uh, dirt and Moss and, and ground, you know, uh, little creatures that live in the ground and all. And uh, so you get kind of a, the two opposites of what the wood woods has to offer. This is a complete magic window here. If you stand back here except the reflection’s giving it away. In this case, we hid every, every corner. See, they’re held back about a foot all the way around. One of my granddaughters gave me that, but I hung it there because it defies of where you, you think the window’s here or where do you think the window is? And it, it isn’t here. There’s nothing here. And then at night there are lights shining out into the trees in all these windows. So you, you get that, uh, Vista at night, which is really nice.

Speaker 1:        You’re, you know, again, it’s just one of those situations where you, like, when you’re standing here brushing your teeth, you’re looking out into a little thing and you know, a little bird will, you know, come by and, you know, looking for seeds or something. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, and you’re just standing here brushing your teeth. And you’re kind of, uh, part of that, which is,

Speaker 4:        Well, it’s, what’s interesting too, is that you have more of these little beams are columns outside, right. Where that kind of connects with the ones that it, it lines up with on the inside.

Speaker 1:        Right? Yeah.

Speaker 4:        And so it, it gives you that other feeling too, everything is

Speaker 1:        Continued like connected. Yeah. You just don’t think about whether it’s inside or outside, but you’re, you do feel more connected to what’s out there. Mm-hmm <affirmative> but I’ve been in here when a, a Fox, you taking a bath and a little Fox walks right by, and, and you’re just right on the, your eye level, just a few feet away from it, right. At eye level. And they they’re totally unaware. And, uh, you know, we have all kinds of critters out here, bears and cougars and oh, wow. I have fortunately a Cougar hasn’t walked by.

Speaker 4:        That

Speaker 1:        Would be a little I’ve, you know, everybody said, oh, you’re just looking at a, you know, a, a dirt bank. And, and then I said, just, just wait. And so now the Moss has come in and the vines have grown on it. And, you know, I think it’s, I think, uh, uh, just hillsides, you know, dirt hillsides are beautiful.

Speaker 4:        This is so enjoyable and

Speaker 2:        Calming mm-hmm

Speaker 4:        <affirmative> I kept it just like keeps coming up, you know?

Speaker 1:        Yeah. When I get out, just get out of the car, when you arrive here, you just take a deep breath and it’s like, and then everything, I think your metabolism changes and everything just being, you know, and just looking, I think they, they say in, in hospital rooms, if, uh, even if it’s, uh, just a photograph of a view into nature, it people, uh, heal faster. They’re in the hospital less days and things like that. So nature really does have a, uh, you know, a, uh, beneficial, uh, you know, uh, holistic kind of health thing going

Speaker 6:        For sure.

Speaker 2:        Thank you to Jim Olson for taking us through his beautiful cabin escape in long branch. It was a dream inspired design is brought to you by the Seattle design center. The show is produced by large media. You can find them@larjmedia.com special, thanks to mechi Suzuki, Lisa Willis and Kimmy design for bringing this podcast to life for more head to Seattle design center.com, where you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Next time on inspired design, Anthony mashed of dwell designs takes us through his sustainable renovation of a 1918 Spanish style home.

Speaker 7:        Can we make an old house new again and make it energy efficient and make it smart and add technology and add all those things that we’ve developed over the years into an old house. We wanna show people these don’t need to go to the, to the landfills. You can actually preserve these old houses and make ’em new again. So we set out on this journey.

Speaker 1 (00:00):

When we were building this Peggy and I had gone to Europe and, and had a chance to go through France and Italy and see some incredible wineries and the common denominator of all these great wineries was really cool doors. So we had this guy called the tin man. Yep. What’s his

Speaker 2 (00:18):

Name? Doug. Doug French,

Speaker 1 (00:19):

Doug French.

Speaker 2 (00:20):

And I think he’s retired now. These

Speaker 3 (00:22):

Are giant doors.

Speaker 2 (00:23):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:24):

Yeah. Very large copper doors. Um, when he made them, you know, it’s, it’s a 10 foot high, 10 foot wide space. So it was, uh, two 10 by five, uh, doors that he created. They weigh 600 pounds each. He, they were so big. He wasn’t even sure they’d stay up. So we had to hang him first to make sure that they stayed up and they were shiny, bright copper. Um, he took ’em back down, put ’em on, saw horses. He had acid spray and sprayed on the doors and then had blow torches and was blow torching it for two days. And he pulled out all this turquoise patina in the door, which is really cool. But what he didn’t realize was that I was gonna be fermenting grapes in this front room. And when you ferment, you actually blow off CO2 and the CO2 is full of acid. And so all of this purple patina that kind of weaves into the door, uh, came from our fermentations. And so when he came out to visit, he was like, how did you do that? I really want to, eh, you just gotta start a winery, Doug. That’s all they have become a moniker for us, for sure. But enough on the doors. Right? <laugh> that’s cool. Head

Speaker 4 (01:37):

On in

Speaker 3 (01:41):

I’m Gina Colucci with the Seattle design center every week on inspired design, we sit down with an iconic creator in a space that inspires them this week on inspired design, Peggy and John Bigelow of JM sellers, along with their dog, Billy take us through their beautiful winery and estate in Woodenville.

Speaker 2 (02:00):

Hi, I’m Peggy Bigelow and I am owner and president of JM sellers. We have two retail outlets and a production facility, one in Woodenville and one in Malley,

Speaker 1 (02:12):

Washington, I’m John Bigelow and I’m the, uh, winemaker and owner. And I report to Peggy and have for 32 years. <laugh>

Speaker 3 (02:20):

Peggy and John have owned and operated JM sellers together for 19 years. Ever since John a former software executive decided to take the leap and pursue his passion for wine making together. John and Peggy grew JM sellers into one of the most respected wineries in Washington. The quality of their wine and the beauty of their property can most certainly be attributed to the loving and intentional way. They run their business, their 10 air business. They’re attentive to every detail on their property, which host weddings, wine club events, and weekend tastings. You pull up these beautiful iron gates and you come up the, the skinny driveway and you park, and you’re kind of in this like Pacific Northwest Oasis.

Speaker 1 (03:08):

Well, there’s a, a really incredible history actually to this whole Woodenville valley. And, uh, it goes back to the early 19 hundreds when this was all one big dairy farm. It was 550 acres of dairy farm out here and where we’re standing right now, we have, um, all these incredible trees. These days, we’ve got 120 Japanese Maples. We’ve got over 400 rare conifers on the, the property. But back in the early 19 hundreds, this was all grassland. This was, uh, where the cows would come to graze. There was a big dairy farm down in the right where St. Michelle is below us, uh, was a dairy farm. And it was actually a compound that was built by the Stimson family and the Stimsons were a timber barren family. So they had harvested almost all of the Douglas fur that was in this valley. Um, and they built, uh, houses down there. And some of those homes still stand over at St. Michelle. This area was just for cows to grace. So for close to 70 years, cows were up here, composting this soil in, uh, getting ready for all these trees to be planted.

Speaker 2 (04:16):

And the people who owned this before we did, they were in their eighties when they needed to move to more assist, you know, assisted living. And it was the daughter of one of the owners of the dairy farm after the Stimsons no longer owned it. And so this was her seven acre piece of land that she, it was will to her. She and her husband built the home here.

Speaker 1 (04:40):

You gotta tell the name. So her name was Jan McBride, but she was married to MTY Smith. And I love name MTY Smith, MTY

Speaker 2 (04:48):

Smith. And they were great horticulturalists. The, his family had a, uh, a nursery in the Northeast. So they brought back seedlings from the Northeast and planted here. And what was originally supposed to be a dwarf garden when you bring it into the Northwest and it rains a lot, and you have fertile soil from cow manure, it became this massive garden, and it is, uh, it’s a private Arboretum it’s been registered. Um, we’re bring it. It is, we’re bringing it back to registry. So it’s a, uh, truly registered private arboreum,

Speaker 1 (05:26):

It’s been amazing. So when we first saw this, uh, it didn’t look like it does today with, um, you know, all of our Japanese Maples and conifers right now are, are well taken care of. And, uh, when we first walked up here, it was very overgrown. Um, but you could tell that there was something special here.

Speaker 2 (05:46):

Oh, diamond in the

Speaker 1 (05:47):

Rock and then the house. Yeah, it was built in 1972. And if you imagine the Brady bunch running out onto the deck, that’s about the way the house looks, but it’s really beautiful and it fits the setting. And when we bought it, Peggy decided that we would not tear it down and build some strange Chateau, which we couldn’t have afforded to do anyway. But,

Speaker 2 (06:10):

Uh, thank God we had no

Speaker 1 (06:11):

Money. Yeah. But you know, we’re in Washington state with all these trees. And so she, she painted it very dark, um, gray. Do you call that dark gray?

Speaker 2 (06:20):

We call it dark black coffee

Speaker 1 (06:22):

Actually. Yeah. Okay. Dark black coffee. And, and it’s really, I think it just fits right in with the coffee

Speaker 2 (06:27):

Looks good with green. There’s a lot of green around,

Speaker 3 (06:29):

There’s so much lush greenery at jam sellers that I wondered how the property got its name. The Bramble bump.

Speaker 2 (06:37):

When we first arrived, there truly were Blackberry brambles covering so many Japanese Maples. They were just coming up this, this hill, this bump, and we had three little children. There was a watering system that wasn’t automated. So dragging hoses around to keep things alive was frightening for me. I was like, I don’t think I can. Thank God. Things were very mature.

Speaker 1 (07:05):

You don’t want to get into any more of the infrastructure here

Speaker 2 (07:08):

That we had

Speaker 3 (07:10):

That talk about a workout. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:11):

We figured out it was survival of the fittest. Yeah. We would do what we could and just let mother nature take its course. And so far, it’s, it’s worked out beautifully.

Speaker 1 (07:21):

Why don’t we do the outside first? Okay. And then we’ll go into the winery and the house and I’ll show you, but, uh, let’s go on down the walking path here. So, uh, this is a seven acre piece of property and, uh, uh, the top three acres are planted as the arboreum. Let me see

Speaker 3 (07:37):

A cute little walking path

Speaker 1 (07:39):

Side. Yeah. We’re going down the walking path. Now imagine a bride coming down here in her, uh, bridal gown. And that’s a good idea. This is where most of the brides get married in the summers outside, down here. Uh, when we started the winery, we had no idea that weddings were gonna be a part of our business plan. And about, uh, 10 years ago, we had a nice couple Janine and Brian ask us, could they get married here? And they really liked the way it looked. And, and we said, well, yeah, okay. And they said, well, you know, how much is that gonna be? And we said, we have no idea. <laugh> we

Speaker 3 (08:15):

Never, in 2022 weddings and events take up a lot of what they do now, as we walked, John told us about his business philosophy.

Speaker 1 (08:23):

You know, one of the things that I, I think was important, we knew that there really were three major elements to being successful in this. Um, one was environment and two was service and three was great wine. Uh, and now we have a fourth because we started a brewery last year. So great beer too. <laugh> when we found this environment, we knew we had something special and we really wanted to bring world class people in to work it. So we have a master gardener who works this every week and really manages this

Speaker 2 (08:59):

On the way out much. Yeah. That was

Speaker 3 (09:00):

Marriage Bush is when I got here. So exactly doing her job.

Speaker 1 (09:03):

And, and then, um, you know, over time we’ve been able to really evolve this into something that I think when people come and taste or they come to an event here, the feedback we get is there’s nothing like this anywhere. And I, I really app and I, I think they’re saying it in a good way. Uh, but now it’s, it’s really turned out to be amazing.

Speaker 2 (09:24):

We’ve tried to just be ourselves and not be something that, you know, it’s just authentic to this area. We were raised with really hospitable families, amazing cooks and always an open seat at the dinner table. And so that is natural for both John and me.

Speaker 1 (09:48):

I think I love hearing you explain that. No, because I, I, I actually, haven’t heard you say that before and have thought it, that was, that was really great. Cause you know, uh, so many small businesses talk about creating a family atmosphere and, and there’s a reason for that. I mean, when you’re a family you’re willing to do a little extra to, you know, make it just that much better for everybody else. And I think that’s really what Peggy has put in place with as president of the company. She has done things in that leadership role that I just think are natural to her authentic, as you said, and you are a true guide for all of us on what things should look like, how things should be when she comes out. I can tell you, uh, the whole team starts going around and making sure that every plant that is on any table, there’s no dead flowers. You

Speaker 2 (10:47):

Know, I don’t like dead flowers. I like this

Speaker 1 (10:49):

Is very meticulous about the really important things. And, you know, I think that’s one of the things that we’ve found with, uh, 25 years of doing this, that you’ve gotta do the big things. Right. But if you really want to give a great experience to somebody, you gotta do the little things right. As well. And, and you’re really on top of

Speaker 2 (11:10):

That. We just want people to have a good time. Yeah. And feel comfortable and at home here. And because it is a home, I think that that just is the way it rolls. They just walk in and they’re, oh, I don’t feel nervous. I’m at a winery and I’m not nervous.

Speaker 1 (11:25):

Right. I mean, that’s a big thing. This

Speaker 3 (11:27):

Isn’t something that crossed my mind at all. And

Speaker 1 (11:30):

It’s a, I always tell people when they’re tasting with me, if you like my wine, uh, yummy is my favorite descriptor. And if you don’t like it don’t tell me it’s very personal <laugh>. But I think it’s, it’s really true that, you know, we’re not into having to depict all of the different elements of the wine and we hardly ever get wine snobs in our, our, uh, midst. And when we do, I just pull ’em aside and take ’em on a tour and let everybody else have a good time. <laugh>, let’s go on down and I’ll show you a little bit more of the other part of the property. So, uh, as we’re heading down this way, there are a couple of trees on the property. I know we’re just focused way too much on trees, but there’s two trees here that I’ll show you. Uh, one is this tree right above us. And it’s a very tall 85 foot high it’s called sea coral crypto area. And it’s called sea coral crypto area. Because if you look at the end of the, the branches, you’ll see these clumpy things. And when they fall off, they look exactly like sea coral on the ground. This is the tallest sea coral crypto Marrit in the United States by over 20 feet,

Speaker 3 (12:44):

They loves it here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:45):

They, they came out and measured and put us in the book and, and then this tree snapped right next to it and fell. And it fell right towards we, this is a warehouse that we keep all of our wine for the weekends. And, and instead of hitting the warehouse, it caught the very top of this tree. That’s called a Trident maple. And that happens to be the largest Trident maple in the United States as well. You remember all that, uh, that cow manure and the soils, well, these trees love these soils. So happy trees, very happy trees.

Speaker 3 (13:19):

You said Trident maple. And when you look at it, I’ve never seen bark really grow like that. Yeah. In little pieces, it almost does look like something out of the sea. You

Speaker 1 (13:29):

Know, Gina, you can go around this property and just, you know, focus on the different bark structures of these trees. And it’s really an incredible tour, same thing with the Japanese Maples. If you go around and you look at the different leaf structures of all these different, they’re called ARS, Japanese Maples, they’re so different. It’s really kind of fun. Who would, who would I ever guess that trees would be this big a part of my life? <laugh>

Speaker 3 (13:55):

If you wanna see exactly what we’re talking about, head to the Seattle design center website on the inspired design podcast page, and you’ll get behind the scenes images and be able to see all the little details that we cover.

Speaker 1 (14:08):

So we’re come on, Billy.

Speaker 1 (14:14):

All right. So this little trail system is open to the public when we’re, uh, open during the weekends. And it was kind of what you were saying earlier about we’re we’re in a city, we’re in the city of Woodenville, but we’re now out in nature. We’re going for a nature. Watch down past all these trees. You don’t hear the road instead, you hear a stream and, and a bunch of birds, and it’s so peaceful. And you asked me earlier where some of my secret spots are here on the property. Well, this is one of them. I’ll come down here when I just want to chill out and not have to do anything, but think about nature. And you can sit up in that chair on the side. Um, there, there’s all kinds of little secret spots in this property.

Speaker 1 (15:07):

So this, this is a great spot to actually see some of the Douglas firs that were here over a hundred years ago. So remember I told you that, uh, the Douglas firs were cleared out by the Stimson family. Well, they didn’t cut the ones that were on steep hillside so that the erosion factor would occur. And if you look up here, these are close to a hundred feet tall. Wow. And we’re right underneath them right now. Um, this is a, it’s a great way to kind of view this forest, but you don’t want to be here on a big windstorm <laugh> yeah. When we started the winery in 1998, uh, we, we started it in our house in Seattle and, uh, I built a little 15 by 15 foot room in the basement and, uh, started making wine. I made a Cabernet Sovan and a Merlo that year and didn’t end up selling. Those gave those away. Our first official vintage was 1999

Speaker 3 (16:16):

Here, a little stream

Speaker 1 (16:18):

That we have on the property. There are three natural Springs, two at the head of the property. And then one there’s an old pumphouse down here that’s, um, seen better days, but this was the pumphouse that they used to source all the water from. And it basically has a spring behind it and they just put a PVC pipe in, and that was the water that they drank and it was clean and clear. And we’re not on that anymore, obviously, but, um, you can see too, as we’re coming down here, there are some really unique plants. So we’re now out in basically a wetlands. So what,

Speaker 3 (16:54):

I’ve never seen a leaf so large.

Speaker 1 (16:56):

Yeah. This is called skunk cabbage.

Speaker 3 (16:59):

And for reference skunk, the skunk cabbage leaves were waist high on me. And I’m an average height woman. They started skinnier at the bottom and then as they got taller, they got whiter, whiter than my head.

Speaker 1 (17:12):

Skunk cabbage is prehistoric it’s. Um, uh, you know, the, I’m sure the dinosaurs love to eat this. The, uh, you can see how big the statement is on this thing. I mean, it’s just gigantic, but I’ve never seen this big. Yeah. Well and feel, feel the, uh, leaf it’s like leather. Oh,

Speaker 3 (17:32):

Wow. It does feel like leather and it’s

Speaker 1 (17:35):

Cabbage because, uh, it doesn’t smell skunky right now when it bloomed. It was stinky. So this little pond down here was created in 1955. So we’re standing in front of a pond that’s, uh, behind a small dam on this property. Uh, the dam was built basically to create a water source for the 550 acre dairy farm. Uh, and that’s what was used for years and years. Uh, and now it’s really just, uh, a dam and, and a nice pond. And we’ve got some seating down here. Yeah. And this is a great spot for people to come down. You can see too, as we’re walking along all the different ferns that are on this property, um, you know, this is a good example of what we were talking about earlier that even if you just did a little Fern exploration here, you’d find like 12 different kinds of ferns.

Speaker 3 (18:32):

As we walk, I noticed all different species of trees and bushes.

Speaker 1 (18:37):

Um, this is all horse tail

Speaker 3 (18:39):

And the different colors and textures of greenery.

Speaker 1 (18:42):

You know, most of these trees are 60 to 70 year old trees now. And so it’s a really mature Arboretum. I always joke with people when they come out for the tastings, I’ll say, you know, we have 120 Japanese Maples, 400 rare conifers and no grapes here. <laugh> and they’re like, where are all the grapes? And I always tell ’em the grapes are two and a half to five hours from here. Yeah. So everything we grow is over in, uh, Southeast Washington,

Speaker 3 (19:10):

We continue our tour and I noticed a Hawk circling above us.

Speaker 1 (19:16):

It’s pretty, pretty awesome. They’ll they’ll actually follow me. Uh, they’re kind of like, like Billy, our dog, you know, they’ll follow me around while I’m working and they just circle up. There’s lots of Eagles. Uh, the ducks just, uh, came in and they’re having their ducklings now. And we’ve got incredible hummingbird that are everywhere. I love those.

Speaker 3 (19:41):

So you can plant, watch bird, watch. Yep. Wine watch. <laugh>,

Speaker 1 (19:47):

It’s really fun to have an environment like this, where people can walk around with their glass of wine and really explore things that maybe they haven’t seen before. When we, uh, when we first bought the property in the year 2000, um, my mom and dad were living down on lake union in a little condo and they really wanted a dog and the condo wouldn’t let, ’em have a dog. So Peggy. And I said, well, why don’t you move into the upstairs of the house? We’re just gonna use the bottom half. And so they did. And they were here for my mom’s last 12 years and my dad’s last 16. And it was really one of the best parts of this whole thing.

Speaker 5 (20:32):

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Speaker 3 (21:02):

We finally made a full circle around the property, and I couldn’t wait to see the interior of jam sellers.

Speaker 1 (21:09):

This was our original tasting room. We just had a table in here when we first opened for tasting and people would come in, you know, when you’re just start, you don’t think many people are gonna show up. People kept showing up. We, we were so surprised we had

Speaker 6 (21:23):

One table and they were jammed

Speaker 1 (21:25):

In here, just jammed in here.

Speaker 6 (21:26):

So we just kept little by little.

Speaker 1 (21:28):

So that was another reason to build the winery on the side and move all the production out so we could make this whole thing, be the tasting room. And I’ll take you out there and show you.

Speaker 3 (21:39):

So now we’re walking quickly back outside, but now to the extension,

Speaker 1 (21:44):

The house is actually built into the Burma of the hill. So the upper level has an access at that level in the back. Uh, and the, uh, side of the house was just earth. So we dug the earth out on the side and the back of the house and created the winery. And it’s where I made my wine for 12 years. Uh, I loved it. It was, I got to develop it from scratch. So it had everything that I wanted drain wise, refrigeration wise. Um, we made it at that point about 3000 cases of wine a year. So this is a really good size for that. We make about 8,000 cases now. And so this was not gonna work in the, the long term, but, uh, it was really a great way to start. And one of the things that we always joke about is when we were building this Peggy and I had gone to Europe and, and had a chance to go through France and Italy and see some incredible wineries and the common denominator of all these great wineries was really cool doors. So we had this guy called the tin man. Yep. What’s his

Speaker 3 (22:50):

Name? Doug French.

Speaker 1 (22:51):

Doug French. And I

Speaker 3 (22:52):

Think he’s retired now. These are giant doors. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:55):

Yeah. Very large copper doors. Um, when he made them, you know, it’s, it’s a 10 foot high, 10 foot wide space. So it was, uh, two 10 by five, uh, doors that he created. They weigh 600 pounds each. He, they were so big. He wasn’t even sure they’d stay up. So we had to hang him first to make sure that they stayed up and they were shiny, bright copper. Um, he took ’em back down, put ’em on, saw horses. He had acid spray and sprayed on the doors and then had blow torches and was blow torching it for two days. And he pulled out all this turquoise patina in the door, which is really cool. But what he didn’t realize was that I was gonna be fermenting grapes in this front room. And when you ferment, you actually blow off CO2 and the CO2 is full of acid. And so all of this purple patina that kind of weaves into the door, uh, came from our fermentations. And so when he came out to visit, he was like, how did you do that? I really want to, eh, you just gotta start a winery, Doug. That’s all. Cause

Speaker 3 (24:03):

It does add another level of depth to the doors of, and if you imagine not having these extra spots, they would still be beautiful. But knowing that even the wine touched the doors is a really cool aspect to it.

Speaker 1 (24:20):

They have become a moniker for us, for sure. Uh, I mean, if you look at our website, they’re all over in that, but enough on the doors, right. <laugh> let’s cool. Cut.

Speaker 3 (24:28):

On in, at this point we walked through the tasting room and into what is now the barrel room. This is where they used to store all the wine, but they’ve transformed it into a beautiful event space.

Speaker 1 (24:39):

I had one point about 200 barrels in here. Wow. Uh, which was great. But then when we started doing the weddings, uh, the brides were asking me to move the barrels all over for each wedding <laugh> and I was like, okay, I think it’s time to look for another space to make my wine. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (24:56):

It’s not, no, we’re still gonna have the weddings. We’re just gonna move the wine. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (24:59):

Exactly. So we left a wine wall, so that, I mean a barrel wall so that they could pretend they’re in a

Speaker 3 (25:05):

Room. Are these barrels still in use? Is there still wine in them?

Speaker 1 (25:09):

No. No. Nope. They’re empty. They’re just blanks.

Speaker 2 (25:10):

You would smell it. We missed the smell. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:13):

Yeah. It was pretty awesome to be walking through here and, and smelly, but you know, it, it, you can go to Maltbie and see a really beautiful barrel room that we’ve created out there. We got to build a whole new winery out there and uh, it’s been really fun. It’s seven miles from Woodenville. So it’s really easy to get to. And we’ve got a tasting room there, a beautiful tasting room that again, Peggy created. Yep. Um, she designed it and it’s, she, she did shiplap in it. And I remember saying to her, it was, I called her up and I go, Hey, are, are we doing shiplap in here? And she goes, yes, we are. And I said, I don’t know, hun. I mean, that seems, and she said, trust me. And so it showed up and it was just the natural wood, uh, shiplap. And they put it up, which is gorgeous by it is gorgeous by the way they put it up. And I said, Peggy, you’re right. It looks great. It looks like we’re in, um, a beautiful, you know, outdoor, you know, out in the west kind of place a, a hunting lodge or something. And I said, you’re not gonna paint the ship lap. Are you? And she goes, yep. We’re painting it. White. Sorry. You can’t, you can’t paint it white. It looks so good. And she goes, trust me, it

Speaker 2 (26:25):

I mean, we have a cottage that has always had white shiplap and it’s just,

Speaker 1 (26:32):

And she was one of those things. It looks beautiful. You did a great job on it. Thank you. I tell people this all the time, but if it tastes good here at JM sellers, it’s me. If it’s good taste, it’s Peggy. She, uh, she has an incredible ability to look at colors and, and just make things work to the best that they can possibly work. It’s it’s awesome. And then that, uh, room in the back is a private wine library, uh, stocked with wines back there. And that’s actually concrete right up against the earth. So we’re standing what would’ve been about 12 feet below earth right now. So the temperature in here stays cool. Um, pretty much all through the year. In fact, that’s why we’ve got heaters in here. Uh, so we can, we can make sure everybody’s comfortable. Can

Speaker 3 (27:18):

I step back there? Does it, does the temperature drop? Cause I noticed it as we walked back.

Speaker 2 (27:23):

Yeah.

Speaker 7 (27:24):

I think you’ll see it in here too.

Speaker 8 (27:27):

And so that kind of acts as a natural wine cooler

Speaker 1 (27:31):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> it does.

Speaker 3 (27:32):

From there, we head out through two beautiful double doors onto the back patio. There’s a fire pit. And John told me this is where they used to come and stomp grapes,

Speaker 2 (27:42):

The fruit, he would dump the fruit into this crusher destemmer right here. So up, he was up at the upper level. Okay. He would put it on the forklift, flip over the bin and then they would sort, you have to tell exactly, but this was where

Speaker 1 (27:58):

It was super slow, but really fun. And you know, we’d have people out here volunteering to, to help out with the sorting. It, it was just a really great community kind of thing. But, um,

Speaker 2 (28:09):

Out in the elements though, I mean, it would be raining and you would be out here. So what

Speaker 3 (28:12):

Time of the year would you do

Speaker 1 (28:13):

That?

Speaker 2 (28:13):

October? That’s

Speaker 1 (28:15):

September, October. It that’s. So we had tents, the grapes we’d put up tents and you know, the biggest problem I had was this tree that’s right above us is a big leaf maple. And the leaves are about eight inches across, uh, when they’re in full bloom and uh, in October that’s when they start falling. So the first thing we’d have to do before we started making wine was shovel. These big leaves off of airs. <laugh>, it’s kind of nice to be in the new spot and not have

Speaker 2 (28:44):

It’s a, a little easier,

Speaker 3 (28:45):

I was curious if John still used the old world technique of grape stomping. I

Speaker 1 (28:49):

Always tell people that I I’m, I new world wine maker using old world techniques. I I’ve really found over the years that, you know, we talked about great experience, great service and great wine. Well, the greatest wines I’ve tasted, uh, in our travels through Europe. And, and we’ve been to South Africa are the, the places that take a little bit more time and experiment and figure out what really worked in the old days. And so this is all to build up to. I foot stomp all of my reds. I, um, use clay am forests to age and, and sometimes ferment, um, some of ’em I reds, and those are all things that are old world that I think add, uh, just another level of excitement in the wine. Uh, and I that’s what I want to do. I, I, you know, I, every year I started making wine in 1998 using a recipe and, uh, UC Davis, I took, uh, the extension courses from UC Davis.

Speaker 1 (29:52):

So there’s a specific way that they teach you academically to make wine. And I did that for five years and I thought the wines were good, but it’s kind of like cooking where you, after you make a recipe, a number of times you think to yourself, you know, maybe a little AEG would be good here and you start adding that in. And by about the 10th time you do it, it’s your own recipe. And people want that. Well, that’s kind of how my wine making evolved. And, um, I’m now 25 years 20, this will be my 26th harvest coming up. Um, but that’s also the interesting thing is we only have one time of the year to do this right. September and October. Yeah, exactly. So I always joke with people that, you know, I’ve done this 25 times. So if I ever thought I was an expert at this, I’m crazy. I’m learning every year and there’s nothing in my life that I’ve done 25 times that I think I’m, I’ve done. I’ve got it efficient. <laugh> yeah. So I, I just, I listen and I try and take in what other people are doing that I like, I try it. And if it’s good, it goes in the glass. If it’s not good, you’ll never taste it

Speaker 3 (30:58):

By this point, knew John and Peggy were creative people. And I wanted to know what they were up to next.

Speaker 1 (31:04):

I am making port right now. So I’ve, I’ve got a, uh, I started a port program three years ago and I’m making a tiny port. So the first vintage of that port, it won’t be a vintage it’s you build on it every year. So each year I make an add to the previous year’s port and it won’t release for another 17 years. So I’m, uh, I’m figuring that Tommy is gonna be the one who needs to, you know, take it for the next 17. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:32):

Talk about a commitment. <laugh> yeah. It’s a, it’s generational in the old country. That’s a new thing for this area. What made you want to do that?

Speaker 1 (31:42):

<laugh> you know, the fact that we

Speaker 2 (31:44):

Went to Portugal. Yeah. We fell in love. Right?

Speaker 1 (31:48):

Well, I fell in love with you way before that. No, I mean, we filling. Okay. Okay. With,

Speaker 2 (31:53):

With port,

Speaker 1 (31:55):

It was, it was, uh, you know, that’s kind of how I’ve evolved. Different wines that we make is we’ll have a great trip somewhere. We get a chance to talk with the winemakers and we see behind the scenes what they’re doing. And that’s when I do the experimenting that I was talking about and coming back from Portugal, I just thought, I wonder if I could find Portuguese grapes in Eastern Washington. And I found this really great little vineyard called lonesome Springs ranch. And they had, uh, Toga national Suza and tink, three of the primary Portuguese grapes. And they were older vine. They were planted in 1994. And so I pick those each year and I bring it in and I make my own Brandy with, um, JP trodden. Who’s in the Maltby facility that we’ve got and they make incredible bourbon. I mean, some of the best bourbon I’ve ever tasted.

Speaker 1 (32:44):

And, uh, so they allow me to bring nine barrels of wine, red wine over in the summer. And we fill there still, and we distill it down to first run 120 proof and Brandy, and it it’s raw Brandy, so it doesn’t have any color. And really it, it does have a flavor, but, uh, it it’s kinda like ever clear flavor <laugh> yeah, its and uh, and then you end up with this thing called ARA dente, which is what they Portuguese call it. And then I put it through a second still. So it ends up at between 160 and 180 proof. And you add that to the fermenting red wine and that’s how you make port

Speaker 3 (33:25):

Jam sellers practically glows with love John and Peggy pour into the space. Their Karen devotion extends far past the wine to the land, their family, their employees, and their legacy. What role does passion play for you and what would you like to leave as a lasting memory or lasting feeling for

Speaker 1 (33:49):

Kids? Yeah, I mean, honestly I think for us, um, our boys, young men have turned out to be just great human beings and I don’t think there’s anything more I could leave this world that would be better.

Speaker 2 (34:05):

Yeah. I do want to provide a positive environment and I sh and to offer guidance and personal and professional growth for some of our employees, it has been something that I came, it came late to me. Um, I was a stay-at-home mom for a lot of years and didn’t know that I could do what I do. I just didn’t know. And as I found, uh, I have a really wonderful friend who we were just talking about some issue years ago and she goes, you guys, we’re smart people. We can figure this out. And so I think that often and try and convey that to all of these wonderful kind, thoughtful, smart people around me and just help them gain confidence and sure. Footing in this world.

Speaker 1 (35:03):

And I think with the winery where I see it going in the future is we’re not getting bigger. Uh I’ve you know, we, we’ve been making seven to 8,000 cases of wine now for the last six years and I could easily get bigger. Uh, I get opportunities every year for new fruit, uh, some of the best fruit in the state. And I have to turn it down because in order to do these passion projects and I love that you call ’em that, uh, you, you can’t be in distribution. You can’t be in the rat race of the wine world where you’re just trying to get stuff into, you know, the stores and into restaurants. We sell 98% of our wine through our wine club and through being open on the weekends and our event business. So, um, that’s a real luxury because it gives me the chance to decide, I wanna buy clay M for us from Italy and ferment ganache in there.

Speaker 1 (35:59):

Like I saw in Spain when we were there. Um, I can do that. And you know, it’s a small lot and it’s super special. And the wine club gets to enjoy that with us. And, uh, I, my body, uh, concrete egg last year. And, uh, it’s so funny because, you know, there was a big push about probably 10 years ago, uh, in the industry for people to go back to concrete and all these concrete eggs were coming out and it was like everybody was doing it. And I thought, I just don’t want to do the same thing everybody’s doing. And, but then I kept tasting these wines and going well, that’s pretty good. And so I finally said last year, okay, I’m gonna break down and get a concrete egg. And I did, and I was gonna put Sauvignon Blanc in it, but I ended up tasting at Maryvale down in Napa valley, the winemaker there said, have you ever tasted Chardonnay in a concrete egg? And I said, no. And I tasted. And I said, okay, you changed my program. I’m going Chardonnay. So I’m just about to bottle my first concrete Chardonnay. And it’s really delicious. So those are the kinds of things I can do because we’re staying small and well.

Speaker 2 (37:09):

And the other advantage to stay in small is that we, we really get to know the end user. And that is what we like. That’s how we want to be conducting our business.

Speaker 3 (37:22):

John and Peggy have a robust wine club and are committed to philanthropy.

Speaker 1 (37:27):

We get asked a lot to donate and it’s a privilege. I mean, what an incredible thing to have a product that people want to use to raise money mm-hmm <affirmative> to support what is so important in their community. And for us, we, we kind of looked at each other and said, you know what? We need to turn this into a way to have JM sellers give to communities. We wouldn’t even know about the mitochondrial research Guild out of children’s hospital is our big contribution. And we’ve been working with them. This will be our 20th year. Wow. Yeah. It’s hard to believe. And they, they are just an incredible group of people who have supported research in children’s hospital on mitochondrial disease, and they are solving problems. I mean, I’m seeing children through that 20 years that were before this group diagnosed as not living into their teenage years and they’re graduating from college and going on and working. And it’s just so, so humbling. It’s really awesome.

Speaker 3 (38:33):

A big thank you to Peggy and John Biglow for their generous tour of the beautiful space inspired design is brought to you by the Seattle design center. The show is produced by large media. You can find them@larjmedia.com special thanks to mechi Suzuki, Lisa Willis and Kimmy design for bringing this podcast to life for more head to Seattle design center.com, where you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Next time on inspired design. Jim Olson of Olson Konig takes us through his beautiful cabin in long branch.

Speaker 9 (39:15):

My whole philosophy of an architect is integrating life with nature.