WOODWAY, Wash. — Like any fairness-focused sibling, Trevor quickly detected a glaring inequity in his family’s beautiful new Woodway home: His sister’s suite had substantially more glass than his.
“He said, ‘Taylor has five windows, and I only have two. You owe me!’ “ says mom Kim.
Consider the score settled, in strikingly evenhanded fashion.
Peer from one of Trevor’s top-level windows (or from all of Taylor’s), toward the texturally tiered backyard and sprawling Puget Sound beyond, and there nestles the unobtrusive equalizer: a full-size regulation batting cage.
“We wanted something special for them,” says Kim. “Both of our kids play baseball or softball, and there was no special area for them. This is like one on a college campus.”
Architect Allison Hogue and her team at Floisand Studio were game.
“When they said, ‘batting cage,’ it was so much fun,” she says. “It makes the house, and it’s nice to use the lot. It’s situated low and out of view, very tasteful.”
“Tasteful” extends way beyond the backyard. Chris and Kim’s big, open home radiates a peaceful serenity of clean lines, and a clear connection between the home, the view and its spectacular site. Or, in other words, just exactly what they were going for.
“Our first two homes were in planned developments,” Chris says. “We were very much ready for ‘our’ house, where we’ll retire.”
“We wanted the house to be an expression of us — something unique after a couple of tract homes,” adds Kim. “Our style changed throughout the process as we got exposed to different types of design. It was an evolution.”
Right off the bat, everyone agreed that extensive all-over windows would draw in nature and the spectacular shipping-lane views (Kim says 100 or so vessels pass through “on a good day,” along with, the landscapers report, occasional whales). And then, at some point during the evolutionary process, Hogue concedes, it’s possible she “might have nudged” Chris and Kim toward the midcentury-modern aesthetic.
The result, expertly executed by Ainslie-Davis Construction, is a quietly dramatic, three-level collaboration of transparency and connection, in three parts: a big, roomy garage; an enclosed breezeway that connects it to the home; and the home itself, which cranks off-axis to align with the site slope and shoreline, Hogue says.
This special site is part of what used to be one 5-acre parcel, Kim says: “There was only grass here, with a small one-stall barn, crab pots and a surfboard. It was a jungle; there’d been at least 10 years of growth.”
And then, a discovery: They could hear water, even closer than the Sound.
“We uncovered a man-made stream and waterfall that’d been here since the late 1960s,” Kim says.
Off the sleekly minimalist kitchen, where everything is hidden amid Caesarstone countertops, a ceiling-high marble backsplash and walnut cabinets (“Literally not a nail hole,” says Kim), Chris plops with his laptop at the live-edged table in the breakfast nook and takes in the now-openly gurgling stream. From the corner-windowed, sloped-ceiling master suite right above, he and Kim can hear the waterfall at night.
It’s a special place on this special site — with the couple’s customization evolution exhibited throughout.
“For us, it’s making a dream come true,” Kim says. “We wanted something in the end that expressed our personalities and we had a part of. A lot is invested for us with the details.”
They are dreamy details:
— A “floating” sink from Australia inspired the powder room’s one-of-a-kind backsplash/vanity/sink, crafted from a single slab of Calacatta marble whose veining flows between the surfaces, Hogue says.
— Chris and Kim’s careers (they are both in the aerospace industry) steered them toward the entertainment room’s ultra-reclining flight chair, inspired by British Airways’ first-class seats, Kim says.
— And a visit to the Oregon coast triggered the vision of the upper-level, cantilevered reading loft, defined by two rods hanging from the ceiling, with plush purple chairs, a piano and a “get-up-close-and-personal-with-the-ships” telescope. From here, there are windows and glass everywhere, from the detailed staircase’s see-through railing to a luminescent wall of top windows. Lots and lots of windows.
But really — who’s counting?
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