TRAVELING IN CURIOUS LIGHT, CARRY LITTLE WEIGHT

‘Each ray of sunlight strikes a single eye only, so that eye alone may report of it.’ — RW Emerson

This is an annotated Portfolio of Fitzpatrick Keller Architecture — essays, images, and background information for people who wish to do a more in-depth level of research on FKA and our design style, as well as those who simply have an interest in the art of architecture. I will try to offer this in pdf format too, hoping you will print it out so that you can read through it while sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of good coffee. I’m also hoping you will enjoy reading it simply for itself, I’ve tried my best to make it an enjoyable and interesting account. I have not put these images in any particular order other than my own fancy. I’m hoping to spin a good story for you through the art of architecture, perhaps a new idea or two, a way of seeing the world the world we live in. The essays come mostly in the first half, photos and images make up most of the second half.

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Choosing someone to design your home seems to me much like hiring a personal chef — best to taste the cooking before signing any contract.

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Introduction:

All my life I’ve been fascinated by the poetics of space, and someday maybe I’ll find out what the term really means. Architecture is a celebration. (Morrison). Architecture is the struggle for sunlight (Corbusier). A home consists of the proofs and illusions of security (Bachelard). Architecture starts in the ethereal and moves through the pragmatic back to the ethereal (Kahn). Building is a trade — but architecture, like all art, is a search for things that bring joy.

Most of my work, by far, is in residential design — I specialize in creating homes. I would assume that most visitors to this website will want to see images of homes that FKA has done, and there are quite a few here below the fold. With pardons, I’ll take a somewhat circuitous route to them though, because the background context might well inform the way you see and experience the houses in the images.

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The following images and text are meant to help you decide whether to give me a call. Architects and designers are not all equal, even among the best of them. Architecture is as unlimited as any art, and no designer will see the same way as any other. Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh were all extremely talented though their creations differ so greatly. I have been designing homes for over twenty years now, and I believe I have the experience and talent to make your project successful and the process enjoyable. But that does not mean you should hire me.

To help you with this decision, I present here my influences and goals, my way of seeing the world. To me design is an exploration not just of space but of people and community, form and dynamics, and mostly it is a study of joy. I will do my best with these words and images to confound you, to push a bit on your assumptions about design, to perhaps show you new things with new eyes.

As much as I am advertising my services here, I am also hoping to guide some clients to other studios with outlooks and assumptions more suitable for them. I seek clients who wish to express themselves, to expand their notions of what a good space can be, who wish to explore and experiment, to add joy to their world. If you are grumpy or finicky, or status-oriented, if you don’t care much about the food you eat or the music you hear, if you don’t get along well with dogs, then perhaps at some point you would get frustrated with me. I enjoy working most with ambitious perfectionists who define uniquely for themselves what that means. Architecture is a celebration, an exploration, a search for joy — success for me is when a design makes people stand straighter, raise their eyes higher, laugh easier. I am happy to work at all budget levels because I prefer not to define success in dollar amounts. If you can hear a ring of truth in this then I would very much like to help you with your project.

Driving out to site visits, on our winding roads in my old pick-up, maybe with the windows down on the crisp, clear days between forest-fires and snow, I’ve at times allowed myself the wistful, almost unwarranted, connection between what I do and the life of James Herriott, the Yorkshire veterinarian who recorded his life (often fictionally) in ‘All Creatures Great and Small.’ I read his books when I was young, knowing even then that it was not the diseases of cows that made the books worthwhile, but rather the wisdom of the old Yorkshire farmers he met. That is where his life and mine overlap. He drove out to look at livestock, I drive out to see the lay of the land for a new home, but it is the wisdom and validity of those we’ve met in those places that make his books, and perhaps likewise my own experiences, worthy of the tale. I’ve tried to honor this basic fact in the following pages – this presentation is indeed about my work as a designer of homes and buildings, but also very much about the people I’ve met along the way. All art is part stagecraft, including even architecture, but people are always (more often for better than for worse) very much real.

The title of this presentation refers to this point: my job is to support and expand the lives and dreams of my clients — an exercise I find fascinating. This above all else makes my job enjoyable. But to do so I must constantly remind myself that my own ideas are secondary, sometimes completely irrelevant. Exploration, perception, the willingness to bring in new ways of thinking, these are far more important than my own abstract abstract creativity. Assumptions and expectations about what is best, or what my clients will like, all become a heavy weight and slow the designing. I have learned over the years to listen very carefully.

When I was much younger I hitch-hiked through Europe, an eleven month odyssey on $5 a day. I stayed at hostels and bivouacked in farmer’s fields, eating little else but tomato and cheese sandwiches. At the time I was focused on the places I saw, the places I could go. I visited the Notre Dame and Neuschwanstein, the Sacre Familia and the palace at Knossos. The buildings fascinated me, the landscapes did too. Looking back now, through many intervening years, these places blend with the people who inhabited them. As with the sound of a tree falling in an empty forest, I now realize that without the ideas and way of life of the inhabitants there is no such thing as architectural place. This is the same mistake I made for most of my career, thinking that forms and structures I designed could be beautiful within a vacuum – apart from the people who interact with them. I know better now, I realize my trade has never relied fully on the knowledge of design, it has always been more about people – this simple fact took me decades to figure out. I aspire to bring the personalities, interests, and dreams of my clients to the forefront.

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With 20 years of practice behind me, I can design a fine home pretty easily and quickly. This gives me more time for the other important aspect of my job, which is listening to my clients. This is about effort and interest of course, but there is also quite a bit of skill involved. Conversation is an art and skill that I actively develop. It is easy to hear direct statements, but often the best information I get comes indirectly, through a statement that reflects or presupposes a design value, goal or intent. When I hear something that might say more than the direct meaning, I take this seriously. Often enough I disagree, in part or now and then in total, with the direct statements of client wishes. The way I usually go forward in this situation is to do two versions of the design on the next round — one exactly as my clients have described, for they know themselves far better than I do, and one as I would lead best to their (directly or indirectly stated) goal, given my experience. Often, these two versions are then combined to something better than either of the two versions. When not, the final vote seems to run near 50/50 as to which version will be chosen by the clients to be further developed.

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Roots and Footprints:

Good houses grow out of the ground they sit on – this is a common refrain in architecture and the truth of it seems undeniable. Houses are shaped by their context, their form should always acknowledge their place. The roots of architecture are found in the clay of nature and the human mind, perhaps as can be seen in this high gothic church:

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John Muir once wrote ‘the more we cut stone and hew trees to build churches, the further we are from God.’ I can see his point. The roots of good design are in soil, sunlight and weather; community and human connection. The forms that relate to these things vary but the substance does not. Architecture is not so much about sculpture as it is about the dynamics of human interaction with their surroundings. Always underlying this is our interaction with our own nature — Dylan Thomas gave us a fine way to say this, ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives me.’

Architecture can be a humbling enterprise because it can only attempt to shadow the natural world that lies both inside our minds and outside our doors. Superficially, this means to me corner windows, stone fireplaces, indoor and outdoor gardens, wide porches, even also shade trees. Yet more than this, it means places to celebrate a good life, good books, good food, good company – bright kitchens, snug dining rooms, sunny reading nooks — the dynamic interaction with spaces. This emphasis does not in any way diminish the classic architectural goals of symmetry, harmony, balance, and proportion for these are the means and tools to achieve the necessary and comfortable sense of perfection, as in a poem that does not strain to rhyme.

I appreciate all styles of architecture because a house that makes sense instinctively and dynamically — bright, snug, inviting, well inhabited — will look beautiful whether the roof is flat or gabled or hipped. The sculpture of the building needs to serve the human purposes and the lives it contains rather than imposing on them. When Frank Lloyd Wright grumbled forth his famous aphorism ‘form follows function’ this is the point he was referring to. Style and originality are important, creative shapes do play their part, but the dynamic symbols, the ones that relate directly to the dynamics of life, will always be the most important.

Kitchens illustrate this point well for they are so central to our lives — to me they are a direct and clear symbol of a gourmet life, they nourish us, they always seems to be the best place to be at a party. Here are four kitchens I’ve designed over the years, in very different styles, and also a photo of a kitchen I once saw on my travels, as good as any I’ve come up with myself. The question is not which of these spaces would look good in a magazine photo, but which would be a fun and enjoyable place for cooking and entertaining. I built the Oak Street home 20 years ago, I still own it but now I rent it out. It is a small and pragmatic house, 1352sf, built for $205,000 (double this number for today’s costs). I consider it a success, I think a good part of the reason I learned how to cook was simply that I enjoyed being in this space. The second photo shows the kitchen at Talus Rock Resort. As with Oak Street, it purposefully blurs the line between the pragmatic and the enjoyable — it is meant to invite people towards it, as an experience as much as a place. The third photo is the Rose residence, here too the space seems rarified to me, a place one wants to linger. The concept image for the design on Konniotto Road was never built so I will never know if I succeeded here too. Kitchens are never at their true best when they are perfectly clean and uncluttered, their moment to shine is on Thanksgiving Day — kitchen is more of a verb to me than a noun. The last photo always humbles me — if cooking out of an old coffee can bring such contentment, why is it no easier to achieve it with a Wolfe stove and a commercial double-door refrigerator? Perhaps because joy can be nourished, but never bought.

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It is not enough to see design as sculpture, design is the response to the movement and dynamics of life. I let the beauty of structures rise out of the purposes they contain. When Frank Lloyd Wright spoke of form following function, I believe he was referring to this concept.

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The joy of being human as the primary goal of architecture will always be an undervalued principle, because it cannot be taught. It is an emotional rather than an intellectual truth, a wisdom too central to ever be academically analyzed. It is easy to design a place to put a dining table, far less easy to design a place that’s cozy, friendly, enjoyable. A bench on the front porch helps make a home look friendly, a solid hearth makes it look cozy.

Two other examples of this come to mind. I believe it was the architectural writer Jay Applebee who coined the term ‘prospect and refuge.’ The notion is a pretty clear example of the effect of human (and mammalian) history on modern architecture. The idea is that nature has programmed us to find secure places (refuge) that offer overviews of our surroundings (prospect). Humans and mountain lions appreciate high rocks, squirrels might prefer tree branches, but all seek out places with prospect/refuge. The lions are happy on their rocks, but I am not sure they know exactly why.

The second example is our awareness of the amount of space over our heads, whether it is open sky or ceilinged by perhaps the branches of tall trees or the heaviness of a low rock. This has translated directly into the ceiling vaults of living rooms — room height is an instinctive rather than a sculptural notion. But still this short-changes the topic. It is not just our past of hunting and gathering, living in the wild, that determines these instincts, but also the human search for the perfect, the harmonious, the perhaps spiritual quest for mathematical order. The humanist architects of Renaissance Italy worked out the proper relationship of height to width at 1.3 (width to breadth at 1.62, the golden mean). Our roots are half clay but also half spirit.

The associations to the nature we have risen from (also the nature we are headed towards) is why small and plain houses, as well as large and complex houses, can look very beautiful or quite ugly – the difference is whether they relate to our innate sense of human experience, to us. A large part of the education of a designer is learning how to differentiate a creative and curious design from an instinctive sense of proper space.

It might be easiest to explain the importance of human-based design by using only the simplest of forms. No matter how large your budget, or how grand a place you dream of, the beauty and joy of it will depend almost entirely on the core truths of human nature. Here are the front steps of the hobby farm my lady and I have in Creston (We did not design or build the house itself, but all the stained-wood elements are our work). As in the first photo, the lake in the Black Hills, this might or might not be architecture. It is certainly not ‘high architecture’ except perhaps that there is joy in it. Gateways, entry steps, front porches and front doors are the places where the interactions with a building begin. To give note to the human context right at the outset makes a house look inviting. To carry that natural context throughout the home makes it look comfortable and friendly. Guests to our small farm are acknowledged and actively welcomed.

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Imagine me, advertising my services with a photo of a woodshed. It does not matter to me whether a project is large or small, only that it aspires towards a natural joy. The next image is Talus Rock Resort, painted with a much finer brush than a woodshed, but these simple roots remain the same. My purpose here is to blur the lines between ‘high architecture’ and perceptive living — there is no real difference between these two poles of the spectrum. Never succumb to rules and expectations as to what is art, as to what brings joy — make your own rules.

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NOTABLE PROJECTS:

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Talus Rock — Bruce and Heather

I designed Talus Rock Resort almost twenty years ago now. The owners, Heather and Bruce, are wonderful people and I am glad to call them friends. Heather is amazing as an interior designer and has recently picked up painting with undeniable success. Bruce is a veterinarian who has stayed on top of the game by being able to see the big picture. One of the projects I’ve helped him with in the last couple years is creating a place dedicated to the mourning for lost pets. Due to their imagination, combined with their practicality, Talus Rock Resort has won the best place to stay in the Northwest award three times now.

The structure itself is meant to conjure associations with Rheinish castles and perhaps Swiss ski lodges, while still keeping a toe in North Idaho. Such associations to a more recent human history are secondary to our natural history but still useful and important, they certainly add a depth of imagination and joy. Care must be taken not to over do these associations or the result becomes much like an amusement park – imaginative superficiality. Such associations stir the imagination as long as they are not too bold – the connections need to sit at the back of the mind. The best are vague but still distinct, allowing the mind to in a way be in two places at once. The random stonework in the stucco adds to this effect (though there is a mistake here in that the stones at Talus rise proud of the stucco on the walls, whereas they should appear as if the material has worn away to expose them).

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One of my favorite things about Talus Rock is the attention given to places that might normally be forgotten, such as with this window in a hallway and this simple rock wall.

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Here are some interior images – please note Heather’s eye for interior design..

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Bruce and Heather gave a solid boost to the early years of my career. I’ve continued doing projects with them and I always enjoy them. I appreciate the way they work and think. The projects are always creative and done with a sense of joy. Here’s a house in Ketchum I designed for them in 2008 or so.

Bruce is a veterinarian, here’s two early designs for his clinic.

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The first variation seems to me too much like a barn, the association is too bold. The second image has a better balance, the barn shape remains but remains more in the background. The following image is a concept I did for Bruce many years ago. It is a shop/condo development by the airport that included hangars out back. Now, over ten years later, I am working on a scaled-down version of this same project. We’ll get it built someday, in this field patience is necessary. I include this image here because I think it does a good job of showing Bruce’s imagination as well as my own. My favorite designs always seem to be the ones with the most client input — why ever use just one brain when others are available?

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I’ve been working on a few other projects for them recently – besides the airport project shown above, we have also been designing an extension to the resort, and a tower meant to be an air-bnb rental. We are beginning work on a sauna and two ‘barndominiums’

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For the additional building at Talus Rock, I told Heather I’d like it seem like a sibling to the original building – not altogether different, but different enough to have its own character. Groups of buildings have the advantage that they can play off each other, they can express both individual and group character. This is indeed possible in solo buildings as well. I use a pop-outs, dormers, separated roof planes and perhaps an extra corner or two to pull the character of different spaces out onto the surface of the building – the dining area, the upstairs bedrooms, the living area and often even the laundry room all gain by having a slightly distinct character, giving the building a look much like a family portrait.

The air-BnB tower is meant to be built on the farm in Nebraska where Bruce grew up. It is in honor of Bruce’s father who passed away a few years ago, and for the benefit of his mother through the extra income. In typical style, Bruce also means for the building to add something special to the world around him

Bruce and Heather are good people for me to work with because they strive to create things that are a little better than they’ve ever done before, they are curious about new ideas, they aspire to add to the lives of the people around them. Working with them is a free flow of ideas, where anything can be put on the table for consideration, but always there is the question attached – can it be better?

At Talus Rock they’ve done an extraordinary job, if you are planning a stay in Sandpoint you might want to look up Talus Rock online, I think it is well worth a visit.

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Bruce and Heather taught me a lot about the realization of dreams. This is a difficult skill and they are both very good at it. Dreaming is a good thing of itself, but to be able to create a dream takes prudence, practice, skill and determination. I do a lot of designs for free or reduced cost simply because the dream intrigues me, I am lucky if one out of ten such projects come to fruition. I do my best to guide my clients along the borderline between perfect and feasible. I’ve heard that ‘architecture is budget’ and I cannot deny the truth of this. Better to create a small and perfect dream than a grand dream that doesn’t stand on sound footing.

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Larch Street Apartments/Condos:

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This is an 8 unit complex on the corner of Larch and Ella Streets. The project is a personal favorite of mine because it manages to create a ‘rarified space’ – a place where it is obvious that something different, perhaps a little dreamlike, is happening here. The look is based on the ancient structures of Southern Spain or the Greek Islands. At its center is a courtyard between small apartments, whitewashed, with balconies – a place that looks modern but with a few chickens added could have been seen a thousand years ago. ‘Timeless’ is the architect’s jargon for the phenomenon. The courtyard feels somewhat like an oasis, peaceful, healthy and vibrant. The water-fountain adds to this sense, but it is an oasis surrounded by community rather than palm trees

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Ali, the client, has a sharp imagination. Though he was still only in his 30th year or so when the
project was built, he had traveled extensively, soaking in the influences of foreign culture and design.
Like Bruce and Heather, he sees a large world that is often in need of a little gardening. He originally
hired me to help with a village library in Cambodia, shown below (which he fully and individually
funded). In lieu of part of my fee, he paid for a trip to Cambodia so I could see the finished building first-hand (as well as to look at the site so that I could design a small school for it).

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He asked me how to put to good use some investment money so of course I suggested a small housing project, which became the Larch and Ella development. From the beginning, the project had ambitious goals.

–We would use Sandpoint’s new ‘cottage code’ to increase the density so that the apartments could be affordable but still elegant.

–We would build with as many non-toxic materials as possible, using strawbale/clay walls and including an experiment with polished clay floors. (The floors worked worked quite well except that the polish did not stop small plants from growing up through the living room floor. This seemed inappropriate as a sales point but it did give a nod to success as a non-toxic home).

–We would highlight community space

–We would experiment with building methods to try to hold down costs, including pre-built bathrooms.

–We would add a bonus space to the upper units, for storage but also as an escape from any commotion caused by living in a small home. These spaces are up high, low ceilinged, and with an abundance of windows. In other words we designed in the notion of prospect/refuge.

–We gave all units private outdoor space, which to me is always necessary. With the natural curves of the clay walls, the ancient history of lime whitewash, and the simple boxy building forms, I believe we created a spaces that feel both modern and traditional. For too long, architects kept their focus on progress and technology, and had forgotten many of the good lessons from the past, comfortable ways to live that people had known centuries and even millenia ago. The oldest village on earth, Chatal Hoyuk in modern Turkey, had beautiful and comfortable white-washed rooms that look very much like what we created here. The lime-washed courtyards of Spain and Greece have also been around for thousands of years. In the past few decades I have seen glimpses of these old truths in work done by forward thinking architects and I hope this trend continues. The straw-bale walls are covered with red clay quarried just south of Spokane. Such walls are a form of ‘wattle-and-daub’ — a building style that made the Romans seem modern. These are organic buildings as much as possible. If you ate a bit of the wall, the clay would help soak up internal toxins. I am not trying to change the world with this, but rather to keep some of the good things that have been around for millennia.

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The photos above show the clay/straw building process. The plywood tower in thrird shot is the prebuilt bathroom structure being installed. The last shot shows Hill Mannan, a local realtor (broker/owner at Roots Realty) who sees much as I do, and who believed that this project was worth some volunteered effort. I like working with Hill because he sees people and not just clients.

Smudging clay on walls is not a technical task and many people of all ages showed up to lend a hand. Extra thanks to Karin Wiedermeyer’s son (Karin runs the music conservatory in town and the first image in this essay is a music center she tried to get built) for bringing his friends by. This social aspect of building is all but lost now, barn-raisings were once a social highlight in villages all over the world. Architecture, and building, has always had the power to get people to work together.

The Larch&Ella Project showed me some of the social aspects of architecture. This is true of home design too, for no house is built solely for the owners (unless perhaps they are dedicated hermits). I do many designs with a separate apartment for when parents grow old and extra rooms for grown children to come back to. I also take care to design consciously for children living in the home, it does not seem quite enough to give them all a bedroom and call the job finished. Design needs to support, in all ways, the joys of living in families and groups (partly because, of course, living in families and groups can be at times annoying, and design can help mitigate this aspect). Once again, this is architecture as a dynamic rather than a sculptural art.

Not everything for Ali was business — here is the home I designed for Ali and his wife, for a lot at the
top of Konniotto Road, though they moved to California so did not go through with the construction.

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I greatly enjoyed working with Ali because we both like to see what boundaries can be pushed, we
want to find and move the one rock that covers the opening to the mythical palace of the elves. He has the imagination and also the backing to do so, and though we have not been in contact for a good while
now, I hope he keeps turning over those rocks. Here are two last photos, one is a green roof garden-shed on his Konniotto land, the other is the first design concept for the school in Cambodia, which I
would have loved to see built but the budget considerations were far too heavy. The library can be seen
in this image towards the front in the view.

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2 home designs:

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Jackie’s place:

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Jackie is a retired family lawyer out of Houston. If prizes were given for practical as well as emotional
intelligence she would be a laureate — this gives her a sharp legal mind. She always has a kind smile and a curious soul. We designed her home over a decade or ago. I count her as a good friend. Her original instructions to me were given with a quick sketch and a request for the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

As a quick aside I’d like to present a few thoughts on Mr. Wright, for he had such an immense influence on American, and even international, architecture. Like myself, he most certainly believed in dynamic architecture, as can be seen by his love of ‘birdwalks’ — much like long piers stretching out from the house, awkward-looking perhaps, but an experience to be enjoyed. He focused on designing dynamic spaces, for living. His hearth-nooks also attest to his attention to experiences, and the way people interact with their homes. He was not a strong technician, saying once (perhaps tongue-in-cheek, and in frustration I’m sure) that ‘if the roof doesn’t leak, the architect hasn’t been creative enough.’ I am much the same on this point too — which is why I work with Sean and Richard, and why I make sure the drafting staff is as good as I can possibly get. Architecture is a field of both creativity and technical precision, and it is rare for a single individual to be good at both. Recognizing this, I work with people who are exceptionally good at the things I have unremarkable natural talent for myself. To follow Wright’s ideas for Jackie’s place made for pleasurable explorations for me, and gave me a deeper appreciation for his goals.

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This is perhaps the project where I started pulling forms apart, creating groups of sympathetic entities
rather than drawing a homogeneous mass that can dominate a landscape, perhaps like an overbearing
banker at a tea party. By expressing the purpose spaces of a home on the outside — here is a dining
room, here is an attic bedroom – the structure gains a look of inhabitation, of friendliness. If the spaces
relate to each other well, sometimes even a sense of community can be expressed – a happy gathering
of separate consciousnesses.

I have a fondness for stone archways. The one on the left below is Jackie’s, the one on the right is from San Gigliamo in Tuscany. The arch on the porch ends the central wall of the house, the rock continues between the kitchen/dining and entryway out to the front door. I did this to add a sense of time, I wanted the house to seem as if it were built around an ancient foundation.

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Here’s two shots of the stairs, I think the lightness of the ‘floating stairs’ contrasts nicely the heavy stone behind them. The stairs were one of Jackie’s (many) inspirations, I am very pleased with the
result.

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Jackie loves water and we meant the design to reflect the joys of water and stone together, borrowing as
best we could some of the delight of mountain streams. This might seem to be an eclectic goal but it
provides a sense of place that I don’t think could have come about any other way.

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No project goes seamlessly and on this project it was the electrician who caused the most consternation. He was, to phrase it obliquely, anachronistic — perhaps historic. He made a point of not listening. He put the wall plugs at random heights off the floor, lights in odd places, and refused instructions. He made a mess of things not through incompetence but for a far less rational reason – his attitude suggested strongly that he saw Jackie as an uppity woman who should not tell him what to do. This offended her, of course, and struck me as downright primitive. It amazes me that gender stereotypes are still followed. Male or female, 9 years old or 90, wealthy or just starting out, people are important as they are and I treat all with respect.

I like to cook so I was at Walmart searching for a dutch oven. They had some good ones, nicely glazed, but each one had the words ‘Pioneer Woman’ embossed on the lid, and this upset me to
a humorous degree — for somewhat the same reason. I can’t see that gender relates to either cooking or
electrical work, in any way. At our hobby farm, I do most of cooking. It is usually Judy who drives the tractor, moving oversized haybales up to the pasture. Everyone needs the freedom to be whoever they are, in spite of whatever the world thinks is appropriate. Perhaps I’m over-emphasizing this notion but when designing houses it is of absolute importance.

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Rose Residence:

Ken Rose passed away a few years ago, he was another client who became a good friend. For
many years we met once a month for lunch at the Chinese restaurant in Ponderay and I always feeling
impressed by his wit, humor, and humanity. Between him, his wife Sandy and myself, I believe we
built something very beautiful, and I believe he loved the place greatly. But in order to stabilize his
retirement he was in the process of selling the house, we had started work on a smaller place for him
and Sandy. He fell off a ladder while washing the windows of their Sagle home. He was a very good
man, too soon gone.

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My one small disappointment with thee house can be seen in this photo – the forward facing gable should have been completed, the plans called for an archway over the deck to complete the form. The completion of forms is an important matter, but only aesthetically. This shortcut did not affect the livability, it was just an ‘added expense’ in pragmatic terms, still this shortcut gives the house a suggestion of incompleteness. Given that one small glitch, I think the home turned out beautifully. More importantly, it seemed that Ken (and Sandy too I believe and hope) loved all aspects of it. Because Ken was an amazing and unique person, this is quite gratifying to me.

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DSS Custom Homes Projects:

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I first met Steve at DSS just over ten years ago, we’ve done projects together every year since.
We find that both his clients and mine are often helped by this relationship because over the years he
and I have learned how to communicate effectively. Builders and designers don’t always
work well together because the different backgrounds lead to distinctly different ways of thought. Steve
and I have developed a respectful relationship that can accommodate differences easily enough. I like
working with him because he’s good with people and also he is creative – he is one of the few builders
I know that is not quite satisfied with the ordinary. The job means more to him than just a paycheck.
The only real downside is that I end up with less of a connection with clients when Steve is on board –
simply because he takes over much of the communication needed. This allows me more time to spend
designing, which I enjoy, but one of the joys of my job that I meet a lot of good people with good
dreams, and this aspect becomes diminished.
I often recommend DSS to my clients. There are quite a few other good builders out there but it is a
difficult job and there are a number of builders who are not quite up to the task. With DSS I feel that
my clients in good hands, as well as reaping the benefits of Steve’s creative thinking.
Over the past two years we have done a half dozen projects together out at the golf course near Hope,
some of these design images for them are shown below (in various stages of development). These
projects interest me because the parameters are tighter than usual – the community requirements are
strict so as to keep a homogeneous look (they recently began allowing the contemporary shed-roof style), while the homeowners are successful people who are not
used to living under restrictions. It becomes my job to meld these outlooks into forms that satisfy both
— and yet still do not slip into compromises.

A few years ago Steve vied for the rebuilding the main lodge at the golf course, which had burnt down.
Steve did not get the job so my design was never built. It ended up in the hands of John Hendrix, a very
good architect – his design was a good blend of formal, modern and ‘mountain’ — mine was a bit more exuberant. I include it here because it reflects my design instincts well. Where Hendrix was after appropriateness, and I believe he succeeded, I intended to express as best I could a joyousness. When I design a home or a lodge I do not care if the neighbors are impressed – but I certainly do want all of them to smile. I much prefer working with people who also think this way, for status is only an illusion of happiness, joyfulness runs far deeper. It is of course important to design appropriately for a specific neighborhood, but I believe these restrictions are looser than is commonly thought, and that a sense of joy can convey more goodwill than a sense of standards met.

Steve appreciated this design because he too is ambitious in his craftsmanship. It is not always easy in
this pragmatic world to reserve space for joy, so when he attempts it I support him as I can. Here a few
projects I’ve done for him that never got built. I’m very glad to have helped him try though – one way
or another, one risk after another, the people who are willing to strive and dream will be the ones who
change this pragmatic world for the better.

Steve allows me to push boundaries, we are both always looking for something that might be just a bit
better. He’s willing to take risks if it ‘feels right.’ He’s willing to both give opinions freely and take
them as well. He backs up this attitude with competence as both a builder and a businessman. I hope to keep working with him for many years to come

My Bread and Butter:

The following projects are a collection of good solid houses for people in need of good solid homes.
Architecture will always be a pragmatic art, and functionality will always come before any grandiosity
of ideas. The basic forms of these designs come first from the land and the clients, only then come the
ideas and philosophies of architecture that I’ve collected over the years. I enjoy these projects for their
simple honesty, they relate more to the day-to-day lives of the people I work for than they do to any
notion I might have about the meaning of architecture. Mostly these projects go quickly, a months work
and we have what we believe is a perfect home. Sometimes, however, even the simplest project takes
years — the time spent does not matter nearly as much to me as the appreciation for the work. Some of
these projects are quite small, some of them were built on very tight budgets. Even so, I hope that there
is a joyfulness that comes through both inside and out. I’ve done a few hundred such projects over the years (time does go by). It’s satisfying work. I believe that my clients are able to achieve far more than either they or I could have imagined alone.

Here’s a few more images of various projects:

Oddities and Favorites, Built and Un-built:

Most of the following structures were never built, and often I worked without charge or at a great discount. They were done for clients with ambition and creativity, a willingness to pursue a dream. I take such projects on when I can because it gives me a glimpse into a selection of dreams of a better world. There are public goals, through music, sports, education or social aid, and private dreams of a better lifestyle. In one way or another all of them captured my interest. The projects I was not able to take on were equally curious and valuable and I regret those missed opportunities.

If you have a project that you think might strike my fancy give me a call and we can talk it thorough.

When the Laughing Dog Brewery started selling their beer nationally they became quite
successful and asked us to design a new brewery with a pub attached. Shortly thereafter the owner ran
into some difficulties and put the project on hold. A year or so later he was forced to sell the
business. The design intent was to make the building appear as if it might have been built about 1920 or
so – in the Georgian-American style (much like the Coast Guard also used in the same era, but here
with more of an industrial feel). This sort of traditionalism connects us to our history, also I appreciate the strong Beaux-Art values of that era — there is a certain comfort in designs that arise from the nearly lost knowledge of visual composition. Mac and Duff of MacDuff’s brewery seem to share this love of traditionalism. A few years after I designed this project, they bought the old library on 2nd Street to house their pub. I very much appreciate this, for to sit by one of the tall arched windows and nurse a porter brings a certain specific sense of place that I find in no other building in town

On the approach into town from the Long Bridge, there is a parking-lot/trailhead with a restroom that the city asked us to design. The concept came out over-budget and the city opted for a pre-built restroom
instead, which serves its purpose quite well and saved perhaps two hundred thousand dollars. The
design for the surroundings of the building was mostly retained. Though I would have much liked to see this particular concept built, the final product came out quite well and was far more pragmatic. I try hard to keep my designs under-budget, but at the time I was unaccustomed to the costs of public building

Here is another design for which I forgave the fee, for it was such a grand dream on such a grand
site that I could not resist. I am not at all sure that the project was within the scope of the
client’s resources, but I have never regretted any of the time spent taking it on. The site is a high hill
overlooking the lake, to the southwest of Moose Mountain near Sunnyside. I admit that when I see it I feel some regret that it was never built, but it was always something of a flight of fancy.
The design concept was to combine European influences with a little of the Idaho ‘mountain-modern’ sensibility. The front carries most of the European while the large window walls that bring in
the lake views (not seen here) bring the structure up to contemporary values.

The following is an 800sf vacation cabin and is part of a hobby project I’ve been at for perhaps a decade now, the idea being to put maybe a dozen small, unique cabins on about ten acres, each one being an inhabitable sculpture, as best my talents can create. I believe there is a growing market for vacation rentals that expand the notion of what a dwelling can be.

Here’s a couple other small structures that appeal to me:

The following projects are on the other side of the spectrum. The hotel in the first image has an interesting back-story. We got a call from a client saying he was trying to put together a concept for a luxury hotel, and he sent us a reasonably large check for the retainer. I deposited the check and drew the image. That weekend he called and asked if we could wire his realtor funds for travel costs so she could visit the site. Before sending out funds I had the bank print an image of the check, and we found that his bank did not exist. Such a shame that such games get played, but still I like the image.

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