Making a home in the country

Sunset, Sept, 1994 by Steven R. Lorton

A Sunset writer and his family build a rustic house in Washington's Skagit Valley

IT ALL BEGAN dispassionately with a pin stuck in a map. When our family decided to put down some rural roots by buying land for a weekend and summer retreat, w considered geography first. We wanted to be a manageable distance from Seattle, where we live. And we wanted a minimum of 10 acres (that we could afford). No small order. Eventually, we poked the pin into the map--at Birdsview, Washington--and our adventures started.

This village on the north bank of the Skagit River, about a 1 1/2-hour drive northeast of Seattle, is a quiet community of loggers, farmers, and Upper Skagi tribal families. Dark green mountains, their tops often dusted with snow until July, rise on all sides of the valley, and, in the distance, the jagged ice cap of the North Cascades soar higher still.

For a whole year, we made weekend trips, about two a month, scouting for land, talking to residents, falling in love with the place and the people. Then one day back in Seattle, the phone rang: our soon-to-be neighbors were calling to offer us the 10 acres next to them. We jumped at the offer!

The south-facing property stretches up a slope, with 6 1/2 acres of pasture, a 1/2-acre alder grove, and 3 acres of woodland that runs into national forest. W picked a hillside building site so the house would sit back close to the woods, but still receive plenty of winter sunlight. We drilled a well, put in a gravel lane, and dug a pond to collect springwater and, if needed, to provide water fo the Birdsview Volunteer Fire Department.

A CHANGE IN PLANS

Next, we turned our attention to the house. Our original vision was high-tech sleek--lots of exposed concrete, lots of glass. Then one day, as we stood looking out across that storybook-perfect valley, my wife, Anna Lou, said, "We just can't put anything on this land that doesn't belong here. We have to fit in--quietly."

The structures that seemed to us most in keeping with the land were the handsome, weathered old barns that dot the Skagit Valley. So we asked local architect Linda Martiny to design a house that would have the look and the spirit of these barns.

Martiny hit the road with her camera, photographing barns up and down the Skagi Valley. Then she began to draw. Local builder and craftsman John Janda joined the project, contributing his skills and ideas. The board-and-batten house pictured here is the result of their efforts. With its cedar siding stained silvery gray (to match the color of nearby weathered buildings) and topped by a cedar-shake roof, the house looks as if it had been built in the 19th century.

The structure is simple. The house was built atop a poured concrete foundation and measures 24 feet wide, 40 feet long, and 21 feet tall from the floor of the living area to the roof beam. Exposed 6-by-6 timber posts topped with trusses create the open, barn-like interior.

It's basically a one-room house, flanked on the west end by a bath and a utilit room. Stretching along part of the north wall, the long kitchen counter has cabinets above and below and houses a sink and dishwasher. A built-in work island measuring 3 feet wide, 9 feet long, and 3 feet high faces the counter an holds a cooktop.

Overhead, sleeping lofts project 10 feet into the big room on the east and west sides. A corridor connecting the lofts runs under a long dormer on the south side (or front) of the house. The east loft runs the width of the house. The smaller west loft forfeits space to the stairwell; above this loft, a built-in ladder leads up to an even smaller loft--a favorite spot for kids.

We wanted all the building materials to come from the Skagit Valley. Douglas fi posts and beams, cedar siding and shingles, bigleaf maple for the kitchen cabinets--all came from local mills. Pine wainscot came from a mill east of Cascade Pass. No local materials were suited for the woodstove hearth, but builder John Janda came up with a creative alternative. Using techniques he learned from tribesmen of the Upper Skagit, he hand-split cedar, choosing piece with strong grain patterns, and built forms into which he poured concrete. He compares the resulting hearth to "petrified wood."

In addition to the woodstove, the house has an electric heating system, althoug we've never used it. Heavy insulation in the walls and ceiling holds the stove' heat inside, and a large ceiling fan pushes the warm air around the house.

Windows around three sides of the first floor bring in light and views of the Cascades. Windows all across the upstairs dormer add to the open, airy feeling of the lofts, and sunlight streams down to the living area below.

Outside, covered verandas run along the front and back of the house. A third of the rear veranda is enclosed as a sleeping porch. The 10-foot-wide porches extend the living space considerably. We practically spend our whole summer out there.

A HOUSE ALONE IS NOT A HOME

With 10 acres to manage, we faced three options: do it yourself (which takes a lot of time), hire someone to do it (which takes a lot of money), or form a partnership with nature. We took the latter option. We limited ornamental plantings to borders that wrap around three sides of the house and extend no more than 10 feet from the foundation. We mow the grass another 30 feet out, an sell the remaining pasture hay to a neighbor. We planted a 60- by 60-foot vegetable garden and feast on its crops all summer and well into the winter.