'Woodsy' takes on new meaning in this very contemporary retreat

"We thought everybody in the Northwest lived in a log home," says Bill Hale.

That was the vision dancing in their heads when the Hales moved here from St. Paul 11 years ago after Bill took a job as a software developer for Microsoft.

"Lodgy and woodsy," says his wife, Dianne.

They spent their first few years here living in a Sammamish Plateau housing development, but dreaming of a life where tree meets timber.

"It was nice, but it wasn't what I thought the Northwest was like," Dianne says.

Flipping through a shelter magazine she came upon a house in Cle Elum designed by Lane Williams of COOP15. There was something about that house, somebody's vacation place. It was perfect.

"I was dreaming of a place like this," Dianne says, sending a big smile around the great room of her house in Preston.

But the "this" is a surprise — a contemporary, angular woodland retreat of reveals and HardiePanel, steel and glass.

"My idea was like a Lindal cedar home," Dianne says, while standing in the kitchen of her very not-log home and chuckling at her own misperception.

"Lane, of course, is really contemporary. I said, 'I want it rustic.' He said, 'That word scares me.' " She laughs. "But now I know the combination is just perfect."

Using "lodgy and woodsy" as a launch point, Williams pushed his clients to create a 3,900-square-foot, three-bedroom, four-bath home (along with a 930-square-foot guesthouse) that takes its place among the trees and makes an ethereal statement of its own.

"There's a floating theme through the house," Bill says. He's pointing out the bold terra-cotta HardiePanel wall that appears to rest on air. It divides stairs, which also appear suspended, and great room, solidly attached to earth but leavened by glass walls. Dianne waves her hand at reveals that make other walls appear to defy gravity. Even the deck hovers inches above earth.

Then there is the no-boundary design of ceiling beams and tongue-and-groove decking that just keep on going right past the glass walls. Fireplace stone that doesn't stop at the top, and a Pennsylvania bluestone landing inside the front door, the end of a walk that began outside.

Bill then runs across the room to the fireplace, to point out how the thin slab of black honed slate wraps around the fireplace on one side, while stopping short on the other. Same with the kitchen counter; a balance of asymmetry.

"What Lane brought to the table was continuity," Dianne says. Then she recites a list: all the floors are reclaimed Australian ash; countertops in each bathroom are limestone; cabinets are rift-cut oak; sage quartzite for the fireplace, front face of the home and retaining wall.

The home took 16 months to build, the Hales living in the guesthouse during construction by R.A. Setting Construction. They moved in June 15, 2006.

"I call it a piece of art in a park," Bill says. The park feeling enhanced by Julie O'Farrell of O'Farrell Landscaping. And the art carefully placed on preserved land.

"We didn't buy a piece of forest to cut down a forest," Dianne says. Before construction began, the couple had a tree inventory taken, and Williams oriented the home among the mature second-growth firs, some more than 100 years old. In fact, the Hales' house was shortened in order to save three Doug firs. Furthermore, the couple have placed the acreage in the Public Benefit Rating System, a voluntary land-conservation program (that comes with tax benefits).

"We got up yesterday morning," Dianne says, "and Bill was walking around saying, 'It still feels like we're on vacation and we're going to get kicked out of here.' "

Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine staff photographer.