Karen and Mark Smuland's house snuggles into the eastern flank of Awbrey Butte like it was born there. It is a distinctive home - not typical Central Oregon construction at all. It has a unique presence - sort of East Coast traditional meets Western lodge meets cottage.
"We wanted function and space," says Karen, who is an architect and the designer of the house.
The 3,400-square-foot home - which Mark and Karen share with their children, Hannah and Galen, both 8 - is a study in flow and functionality. The house has a center tower and two wings on either side. Light fills the home, even on a cloudy day, and the interior feels much larger than the footprint indicates.
But start with the exterior. The Smuland home is handsome. It has natural wood with dark green trim and rock siding. Copper gutters and chain downspouts add a contemporary feel, but it is the large steel shingles - 3-by-2-foot steel panels that act as siding on the tower of the home - that stop the eye.
Karen grins a little about those steel shingles.
"I was curious about using steel panels in my design work, so I wanted to experiment with them on our house," she said. "I think it turned out well."
The shingles have a deep, rust patina that will just get more beautiful with age. They are a quietly powerful design statement that adds strength and beauty to the outside of the home.
Mark - who is trained as an architect, but works in real estate development - says that it was important to him and Karen that the kids had a space in the home that was theirs, and that the adults also had an area that was private. The eastern wing of the home belongs to Hannah and Galen. They share a bath and a playroom and have their own rooms, each with a view of the mountains.
The tower of the house acts as a loft, holding offices for Mark and Karen. Karen's office has an internal balcony that opens above the downstairs great room - an architectural detail that is interesting in that it allows the office to be open to the house below, if desired. It also adds visual texture to a high wall that otherwise would have been boring and blank.
Karen says for ceilings, she likes to use exposed beams as opposed to a framework of trusses, which is more expensive, but allows the illusion of much more space. All through the upstairs, the ceiling follows the roofline in peaks and valleys. These angles give the interior movement, visual interest and add sheer volume to the house.
The architect is keenly aware of creating smaller spaces within all this interior volume. Down in the great room - which holds the kitchen, dining room and family room - the kitchen ceiling is held at 9 feet. The family room ceiling soars to 22 feet. This makes the kitchen feel cozy and warm, while the big rock fireplace of the family room doesn't overpower the space, but rather gives a feel of a Western lodge that is balanced by the high ceilings and windows.
Another clever design trick that Karen used twice in the house is the old-fashioned window seat. Hannah has one in her room, and there is one in the dining area that overlooks the view of Mount Bachelor.
"Window seats give you another space in a room," says Karen. "The kids love to sit there and read."
Just a few steps down from the great room are the master bed and bath. Karen says she is particularly pleased with the simple trick she used of dropping the room 30 inches and including a short hall so that it sits behind the rest of the house on the southernmost side.
"Our room is a retreat," she said. "I can come in here and read and feel quiet, even when the TV is on or the kids are playing."
Karen and Mark both say that their favorite thing about the house is the way it sits on their corner lot. They actually staked the house three times until they were satisfied with the way it worked with the land. They included things like measuring the canopies of the trees, to make sure the house didn't sit too close. They worked hard to keep as many trees on the lot as possible, and preserved beautiful natural features like the rock outcropping below the house. They thought hard about working the home into the slope of the hill so that it didn't loom stupidly out of the hillside. They also wanted Hannah and Galen to have flat places to play, so they worked in lawn areas and made the driveway as level as possible.
The Smuland house has beautiful Central Oregon views of the Cascade range. It has a west-facing deck and a private patio. It has a wonderful kitchen, with a three-sided island and a Viking six-burner cooktop. These things aren't really what make the house so interesting. Ultimately, it's the design that works so very well in this home. The Smulands put a huge amount of thought into the house, and what appears to be very simple is actually very practical. The house works for the family, top to bottom.
"I think it's unique because it's both personal and functional," says Karen. "We'll be here for a long time."
Katrina Hays can be reached at kmhays1@earthlink.net.