September 8, 2020

Whidbey Island retreat grabs top design honor

Photos by Kevin Scott [enlarge]

The home ticks into the edge of a densely forested hillside.

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The house has a palette of naturally weathered woods, concrete, locally quarried stone walls, deep oak window jambs, solo plaster walls and black steel accents.

The Whidbey Island Farm Retreat, designed by Seattle-based mwworks, received an honor award in the 2020 Residential Design Architecture Awards.

It is one of four honor award recipients in the custom rural or vacation house category in the program sponsored by Residential Design magazine.

Overall, 20 projects won, selected from nearly 400 entries in 11 design categories.

In a press release, mwworks said the retreat and part-time residence is on rural land on the southwest coast of Whidbey Island. The site also has an organic cattle farm owned by the client, a family with roots going back several generation on the island.

The 4,420-square-foot Whidbey Island Farm Retreat consists of a main house with a bunkhouse that together can accommodate up to 20 people. Out of respect for turn-of-the-century agricultural buildings on the site, the home ticks into the edge of a densely forested hillside, overlooking chicken sheds, a weathered red barn, cattle fields and a fishing pond.

Its one-story main level has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. A partial lower floor has an equal number of bedrooms and bathrooms, a laundry and a wine cellar.

The bunkhouse for grandchildren and guests has one bathroom.

Intended for summer barbecues, fishing retreats and family gatherings, the house is designed to be flexible and durable and reflect the history of the property and the family.

The architect said care was taken to protect trees on the site. To do so, the house's program is broken into discrete, modestly sized volumes, woven between large Douglas fir trees, wrapped around a courtyard of natural and native shrubs and ferns. A low wall of stacked local basalt stone organizes the volumes and subtly defines the perimeter of the courtyard.

The courtyard is a visual and physical link between the volumes. The rustic gravel approach meanders through dense and dark evergreens, opening to the house and views of the courtyard and trees.

Several of the interior doors and wall art are carved solid cedar slabs crafted decades ago by the family patriarch, a doctor. The new solid plank cedar master bedroom door is designed as a future carving project for the owner, in-between his working the land and raising organic cattle in the meadow below, the architect said.

The house has a palette of naturally weathered woods, concrete, locally quarried stone walls, deep oak window jambs, solo plaster walls and black steel accents.

Mwworks provided architecture and interior design. The team included PCS Structural Solutions, Dovetail General Contractors and Kenneth Philp Landscape Architects.