An Urban Pioneer

David Sarti is showing us that good things can come in small boxes

DAVID SARTI'S newly finished, modernist-style house in Seattle's Judkins Park, a little south of East Yesler Way, is the first he has designed and built for himself. It is a showcase for his aesthetic sensibilities and an embodiment of his can-do spirit.

In this neighborhood, earmarked low-rise 2 — an L-2 zone — "a lot that has one house on it can be gone overnight, and builders come in and put six townhouses on that same site," Sarti says. "You go from little house to maxed-out development."

Sarti has built a little house. The living room and kitchen occupy one open room on the ground floor; a one-person powder room is near a side entry. Open stairs in the living room lead past a mezzanine storage area on the way to the master bedroom, guest bedroom/office and a full bathroom.

The entire two-story house comes in a bit under 800 square feet. Include the carport-like workshop out the front door and you can tack on another 300 square feet.

The house is a simple space, "more about volume than anything else," Sarti says. The 14-foot ceilings in the living room, sparse furnishings, light-colored walls and honey-toned wooden cabinetry and stairway emphasize the sense of expansiveness.

"I probably could have squeezed in a third bedroom upstairs, but then I'd be dealing with a bunch of small rooms," Sarti says. "It was important to me to have a small house, but also to have rooms proportioned such that they felt gracious. I didn't want it to feel as if I was trying to do too much."

Sarti, who is 34, chose this neighborhood because he could afford the 40-by-50-foot building lot and because he can bicycle to work from here. For the past 5 ½ years, he has been a project designer/manager with Environmental Works/Community Design Center, a nonprofit architectural firm that provides services for nonprofit housing groups and agencies that run special-needs facilities. Clients appreciate him; the feeling is mutual.

Sarti is no stranger to mixed-use situations that involve public projects, density issues and residential vs. commercial interests, but he grew up in the country, outside a small town. "I've always been intrigued by the city, the urban-pioneer legend, and the ups and downs of that," he says. "The close proximity of neighbors — not being able to control your surroundings and having to respond, or not respond, to what goes on around you — has been really interesting. And I have to say, it has been a bit of an adjustment, but I'm coming into it now, really enjoying it."

Sarti hired builder Brian Neville, took seven months off work and together they framed, sheathed, sided and roofed the house. Once it was enclosed, Sarti did most of the finish work himself. He and friend Prentis Hale built cabinets, and Sarti crafted a clever kitchen island on wheels that he slides under a counter to double as a breakfast bar.

Despite all the custom touches, his costs were less than $200 a square foot, including land, mainly because he did much of the work himself and served as his own contractor.

Windows are carefully placed to gather light, ventilate and open up territorial views. The guest bedroom has a window facing Mount Rainier, and that outlook, given elevations, is not likely to be obstructed, Sarti says.

Downstairs, the main entryway doors are clear glass in fir frames, and fan-fold open so living room and a small patio merge. The backyard lot next door is potentially available, so he's trying to plan for that. "I think bamboo will help."

Excepting the doors, his pared-down materials are mass-produced, affordable and practical. They include plastic-laminate sheeting, modified expanded polystyrene foam (MPS) flooring upstairs, vinyl tile, aluminum windows and fiber-cement panels.

His is a world of ideas in an easy-care box. The structure is standard plywood sheathing and building paper, with 1-inch by 4-inch furring strips nailed over the paper so air can circulate beneath the fiber-cement siding. This should draw moisture out of the walls and extend the life of the building. Bands of silver-toned horizontal flashing contrast with vivid-red siding panels. The statement is sculptural and bold.

A dozen years ago, his house might have raised eyebrows in this district of aging single-family dwellings, apartments and commercial buildings. However, he has had little comment from neighbors, other than one who said he really liked the way it sat on the site and that it looked like he did a nice job.

His house doesn't fill out the maximum footprint allowed — far from it — and this is an articulation of Sarti's philosophy about how to keep cities livable.

"It would seem to me more interesting and surely more incremental if the city would promote subdividing these standard lots into two small lots, to accommodate two little houses," Sarti says. "I always thought of Seattle as a city of little houses. If builders and homeowners were encouraged to build these smaller houses, the city could continue to keep that finer grain. Unfortunately, that's not the way these L zones are being developed."

As for his house, "It remains to be seen how it all works out in the long term — what happens next door, what happens to the north, what happens to the east. My gut says that I think I can absorb that, with landscaping, screening, whatnot. But it's always going to feel like this individual house surrounded by this much more developer-driven housing. That will be sort of interesting."

Like he's the shortest guy on the basketball team?

"Exactly. The building has a certain presence to it. It might be the smallest one on the basketball team, but it's probably the feistiest."

Dean Stahl can be reached at architectsathome@mac.com. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.