Cedar Cove House

A house on a south-facing slope above Cedar Cove, designed for two generations of one family — a writer, her husband, and her adult son who returns for stretches at a time.

The site

Two acres of second-growth cedar with the south edge cliffing down to a tidal flat. The buildable area is a long, narrow shelf 18 feet wide that runs east-west along the slope. We arranged the house as a single long bar across the shelf — bedrooms at the east end, living and kitchen at the west, a covered walk in between that opens to the trees on both sides. The garage and the writer’s studio are on a separate pad above the bar, reached by a stepped path.

The materials

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels for floors, roof, and primary structural walls. Board-formed concrete plinth on the south edge where the bar meets the slope. Western red cedar siding, stained to weather grey within two years. Steel everywhere it had to be — the lateral system at the east end, the long covered walk’s posts, the kitchen counter. Slate at the entry and bathrooms.

The decisions we’d defend

• A single bar instead of an L or T. The L would have closed the courtyard against the wind; the T would have over-committed to the view.
• CLT instead of stick frame. More expensive at the structure line, cheaper at the finish line, and the exposed ceilings became the room.
• No formal dining room. A long table in the kitchen does what the dining room was supposed to do; the budget went into a better kitchen island instead.
• Garage on a separate pad. Code would have allowed an attached garage at the east end; pulling it off the bar kept the bar’s proportions and gave us a stepped landscape.