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50 years of open houses

Editor's note: Fifty years ago, The Seattle Times launched a monthly Sunday feature with the cooperation of The American Institute of Architects, Seattle. Known as Home of the Month, the program profiled a Puget Sound residence designed by a licensed architect and offered readers the opportunity to visit the house that afternoon. The program, more recently renamed "Open House," continues to offer the public direct contact with owners and architects in the context of the new homes they have created. Several notable participants over the course of this half-century — a journalist, a homeowner and local architects — share their experiences and observations.

By Peter Sackett
Special to The Seattle Times

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bill Wahl stands in the living room of his Bellevue residence. It was designed by architect Wendell Lovett and was the Home of the Month in May 1979.
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"We are very proud to present the first Home of the Month, designed by Ira E. Cummings, architect, A.I.A., and constructed by N. J. Zorich, builder. The house was designed for the N.J. Zorich family on lovely view property in Blue Ridge. The house, open today from noon to 6 p.m., introduces this monthly showing of outstanding residences designed by Pacific Northwest architects."

— The Seattle Times, Jan. 3, 1954

Thus begins the first Home of the Month article, titled "Fashionable Design for Living in the Pacific Northwest" and penned by Margery R. Phillips. The language might sound dated, perhaps more suited to a society note than to a discussion of architecture, but it captures the spirit of the times in which it was written, in a much smaller Seattle caught up in the postwar appreciation of the surroundings and enthusiasm for settling into them.

"Having been married to an architect, I was always interested in architecture," explains Phillips, now a stylish, white-haired 87. "There was a lot of building after the war. I tried to reach the average housewife who may or may not have had a college education, but just knew good things about her house, or things she wanted to improve, or things she'd want in a new house."

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Writer Margery R. Phillips

In addition to fulfilling a personal interest, the subsequent Home of the Month feature offered readers of The Times a privileged opportunity — unusual then as it is today — to peer beneath the veneer of a finished home and see the people behind the project. Home of the Month was designed to demystify the process. The Open House program, which is open to all architects, relies on creativity and curiosity — and a willingness to share not just the finished product, but the nuts and bolts of residential design.

Much like today, The Times feature included an image of the residence, a brief description, including some specifications and instructions on how to get there for a personal look. From its inception, the program was well received by the community, and quickly became an institution.

Other American newspapers had tried similar programs but were unable to keep them alive. "I got so many letters from other cities — I wish I'd kept them," recalls Phillips, "They'd ask, 'How can you sustain the Home of the Month program? We tried it and couldn't.' "

Phillips smiles at the memory, then winces. "I couldn't say this then, but the reason was that I spoon-fed these architects. I had to keep after them so they would respond!" But she had her concerns. Presenting a private home for public tour required aggressive management, tracking down architects and builders who had expressed an interest in having their projects profiled, but didn't always follow through with the information Phillips needed to write the article.

Program information The annual Seattle Times/AIA Home of the Year awards program will begin at 7:30 p.m. March 12 in Kane Hall Roethke Auditorium on the University of Washington campus. At the program, best-selling author and architect Sarah Susanka will speak and join a local panel to offer commentary on residential design spanning the 50-year-old program. There also will be the announcement of the 2003 Home of the Year. General admission tickets are $18 in advance, $22 after March 10. Student rates are $10 in advance, $15 after March 10. Tickets are available online at www.aiaseattle.org or in person at AIA Seattle's office, 1911 First Ave. For more information, call 206-448-4938.

"I was just coaching and coaching them. Even the young ones, who were poor, were real hesitant about it."

L. Jane Hastings, an architect featured in the Home of the Month program and an early chairperson of the program's selection committee, explains, "The Home of the Month really started out as a bit of information to prospective home builders. We didn't have all of these big markets, like Home Depot, where you could see all of the building materials. Clients would rely on their builder or their architect to tell them the best thing to use. I think it evolved from that."

She recalls the sometimes puzzling reluctance of many architects to hand over plans, drawings and descriptions of their house designs.

"The concept of marketing was a relatively new thing in architectural practices," says Hastings. To an architect, she reasoned, "The attitude was that your work spoke for itself and you didn't have to go out and sell yourself. The best you could do, I suppose, might be to belong to the right golf club or do the party circuit. It was quite different then."

In spite of the inherent wrangling, Phillips enjoyed her work. She could function more or less as her own boss and had the freedom to tailor her schedule around her family life.

"I free-lanced because I wanted to be home with my children, go to PTA and play bridge if I wanted to. I'd often 'write' copy while I was driving someplace," she says, tapping her head, "get it all thought out." She leaned toward a social, readable style to convey information that in some other publications tended toward theory and indecipherable shoptalk.

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bill Wahl still can recall the day 25 years ago when his house was Home of the Month. "This kid went over the side of the stairwell and dropped onto the concrete pad near the wine cellar. I was thinking, 'Do I have any insurance for this?' " Fortunately, the child was unscathed.

"I wrote probably at an eighth-grade level," she says. "I didn't do a lot of technical work; I wanted the readers to understand how the house worked through my easygoing way of writing. I wanted to cover the new ideas in building materials and the change from the little square boxes, with doors and walls separating everything, to a more open plan."

Phillips started writing about homes while she was in college studying interior design. After several years she free-lanced, starting in 1948 for The Times and eventually launching the Home of the Month feature. She also wrote for national magazines, such as Better Homes and Gardens and House Beautiful, occasionally traveling to other areas for conferences and assignments. She recalls how diminutive Seattle seemed when compared with other cities she visited.

"It was really like we were up in the sticks," recalls Phillips, "I used to go to New York for staff meetings and I'd fly back past the Smith Tower and think, 'Oh, what a little town.' "

Though she phased herself out of writing Home of the Month in the early 1970s, Phillips still reads it, "providing it doesn't get too technical," and feels surprised at its longevity. "I'm still amazed — and a little alarmed — that it's continued for so long. I didn't know how much further it would go after I left because I had played so close to it.

"The program relied on its own merits and has stood for 50 years pretty well."

An owner's perspective

Twenty-five years after the program began, on May 27, 1979, Bill Wahl and his wife, Pat, opened their Bellevue home to the public. They had hired longtime Seattle architect Wendell Lovett to design it, and he joined Wahl, the builder and the subcontractors on the day of the public tour.

Another quarter-century later, Wahl, now 64 and retired from a career in mortgage banking, sits in the living room of the house at the edge of Lake Washington, remembering the day and events leading up to it.

"We drew together all of the people who did the work on the house," says Wahl. "They all wanted to be here because they wanted more work down the road."

It was an important moment for everyone, particularly the client. Two years had gone by since he and his wife had started the project by selecting their architect. It had been difficult work, but worth it. "Our pride in what we were creating was such that we wanted to share it with other people and say, 'Look what we did!' " says Wahl.

It was a muddy spring day. The house was near completion but still uncarpeted, with pieces of plywood and plasterboard still strewn about — nothing that could be damaged by tracked-in dirt. In preparation, everyone had scrambled from room-to-room to attach identifying labels to bathroom and lighting fixtures, cabinetry — anything they thought would be of interest to the visitors. But the doorbell rang earlier than expected.

Wahl recalls, shaking his head, "We were not prepared for the volume of people who showed up. Hundreds and hundreds of people showed up that day — hundreds and hundreds and hundreds." They thought the house was prepared for most every contingency, but soon discovered they had missed at least one.

"We didn't think about the kids," says Wahl. "There were too many kids for us to keep an eye on."

There was reason to be worried. Lovett had designed a "plant shelf" — actually a substantial catwalk-like structure, without railings, positioned high over the living room, creating a drop sufficient to inflict severe damage to any curious observer who wasn't careful.

Wahl and the others positioned themselves beneath the shelf, ready to catch whatever dropped. "I was under there waiting for a kid to fall off the upper deck, and then I heard it — 'Aaaahhhhhh, KA-BOOM!' " The accident had happened in a different part of the house.

"This kid went over the side of the stairwell and dropped onto the concrete pad near the wine cellar," says Wahl. "I was thinking, 'Do I have any insurance for this?' " Fortunately, the child was unscathed and suffered only embarrassment and a dusting-off from the parents.

Beyond that particular drama, homeowner, architect and builder were kept occupied with questions from the visitors.

"I'd say that open house was fairly typical," says architect Lovett, now 82. "It was very crowded in there; some of my former students were in attendance as well as some of my future clients. I talked to a lot of people, but mostly one at a time. I didn't try to hold court. Most people like to go around on their own to open the drawers, take a look at the house — sort of like kicking the tires."

Owner learned plenty

Wahl says that by eavesdropping as Lovett talked about the house, he learned more things about the design — things Lovett had known but not yet shared with his client. "He would get pulled aside and people would ask him about the features of the home — 'Why did you do this?' " recalls Wahl. "Every time Wendell gave a tour, I'd learn something new about his thinking. He was doing a lot of that — explaining details of design. And I didn't know anything about it. I said, 'Wow, that's cool!' "

Twenty-five years later, the house is virtually indistinguishable from the photograph in the original article ("Design Takes Advantage of Station Foundation"). In contrast, Wahl's life has changed considerably. Divorced and single since 1985, he lives in the house by himself, but rents out the remaining bedrooms to help pay the property taxes. He has a granddaughter. He smiles a lot when he talks. Lovett and Wahl became friends during the project and still see each other occasionally.

Lovett, still actively designing, remembers the Wahl home as a particularly interesting project, and one to which he feels an enjoyable attachment.

"I think of houses as kind of like children," says Lovett. "I regard them like my daughters, sort of, and I have similar feelings toward them. But I know that they will leave home one day; I can't hold on to them forever and I have to let them go. But it disturbs me when I see a house that has not been maintained. They change sometimes, and that can be a good thing, but when a house falls into uncaring hands, it's hard to see." He adds, "Bill has taken good care of his house.

"I'm going to have to sell this someday," says Wahl. "And the sad thing is that the first thing people are probably going to do when they buy this property is tear the house down. They'll say to the architect they hire, 'Max it out; we want something as big as you can make it.' And that'll happen. It's kind of sad," he says. "I think that the scale of this place is so friendly as far as the functions I need. I've never had a happier place to live."

Creates many leads

The Home of the Month program has had a significant impact on the careers of many young architects. These days, the Sunday afternoon open house typically attracts several hundred visitors, many of them potential clients searching for ideas — and an architect.

	MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Architect Lane Williams

Lane Williams, of Lane Williams Architects, recalls his involvement in the program. Following a feature as the Home of the Month, "I got very lucky and won the Home of the Year," says Williams, "and from that point on, participating in the program became an addiction for me." As a result, he attracts clients and opportunities to do more of the custom design work he enjoys.

"The thing that is great about the program," explains Williams, "is that there are so few opportunities for the public to come and ask an architect about our work. People can come up to us and ask 'Why did you do this?' 'How much did it cost to do that?' or 'This is awful.' And they do ask you. But they are going to say something thoughtful because they want to engage in a dialogue.

"What's important to realize is that this program doesn't necessarily represent the very best of residential design; it presents a much broader spectrum of local residential projects — some you'll never see in other design programs," he says, making reference to the competitions and tours that dwell on extremes and limitless budgets.

"These homes are submitted for different reasons," notes Williams, "having more to do with affordability and social concerns about design — all things being relative, of course — but it's different from having multimillion-dollar houses. And I think that's good for everyone. There is nothing elitist about this program — it's for everybody."

Peter Sackett writes on architecture and design and is program director for the American Institute of Architects, Seattle.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company