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Beached, Beautifully

On an island bay, a tight site is masterfully made over

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BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The second story, at 730 square feet, is all new and gives the Andersons two bedrooms and two baths total. The sitting-room loft also serves as an extra guest room. The bed is elevated to take advantage of the views. The posters give it height to meet the scale of the room. BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Stanwood architect Dan Nelson broke out of the old cottage mold with a second floor and decks. Because the original house, built on sand at high-tide’s edge, was sinking, Nelson also installed 50 pilings and poured new concrete alongside footings already there. BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Nelson took out the walls between the kitchen and living areas and removed an adjacent bedroom to create a great room with a vaulted ceiling and clerestory windows to keep things light and bright. Subtle nautical touches include white metal stair railings. Street-side windows are dressed in sturdy, white plantation shutters. BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The airy white kitchen is balanced by the solid cherry dining table, big enough to seat 12. The copper-plated exhaust hood rises almost 20 feet and recalls a ship’s smokestack. Overhead kitchen cabinets were sacrificed for windows, so Coleen Anderson is particularly grateful for a pantry.

LIFE'S A REAL beach for Stanwood architect Dan Nelson and interior designer Garrett Kuhlman. It really is.

"We have a lot of beach," Nelson says, gazing off to where bay meets sand on north Camano Island.

And the comfortable yet traditional, 1,920-square-foot home he's standing in at that moment could be called, well, a real son of a beach. For it was born from the exact footprint of its 1960s' forefather — an unremarkable little one-story cottage owned by Norman and Coleen Anderson.

Setback regulations, archeological zones and other restrictions, such as drain-field limits, challenge designers of beachfront homes. Architects really earn their keep solving these puzzles, and they can bring the most interesting solutions, usually in the form of a severe remodel.

Take the courtyard, for instance. A tight site smack up against the road now has a private street-side deck offering blue sky and bright sun, but no brisk breezes.

The coast without the kitsch


Interior designer Garrett Kuhlman's goal for the Anderson home was beachy — but not kitschy. How did he do it?

"No lighthouse décor or sea captains" is how he puts it.

Kuhlman gets the idea across in colors pulled from the beach: soft blues, greens, beiges, yellows and rose.

OK, two lobster traps and a big glass float are tossed on a ledge over the front door. But they have been professionally tossed; they are not in your face.

Cabinets are fresh, clean white, as is the simple four-poster master bed. Closet doors embedded with beveled mirrors bring in the watery horizon. The rift-cut oak floors and vertical-grain fir walls add a golden-sunset glow. White hexagonal bathroom tiles and wainscoting around the tub contribute an ocean air, as do photographs from the Camano Island Historical Society. Sturdy, white plantation shutters offer privacy across the front.

No yard? Roger Hill and Associates lined the deck outside the master bath with huge green pots and a sprinkler system, providing greenery where there is no garden space.

"It's real right-brain, left-brain," says Nelson, who does a lot of this kind of thing at Designs Northwest Architects. "And then you have to do something beautiful, functional and within budget. It's a matter of getting the spaces in the right places in relation to the water and usage.

"Our goal is that all through the process the owners love the house, that it fits their lifestyle."

This house fills the lot, but nothing looks crammed in. When out was no longer an option, the choice was up. There's a new second story and four decks.

But restraint can be a good thing. "Holding the space down allows for more quality materials," says Kuhlman, of h2k design. He chose everything from the Sheetrock on in.

Quality but casual is what the Andersons wanted. Coleen and Norman were ready for the change.

They had spent 13 years of weekends muddling about in the old place, and they were thinking they would retire and commit to the new, improved place full time. But Coleen gets an "F" in retirement — so far. After a mere six months she is involved in a new brokerage firm. So Norman continues to manage a trust fund. And they get out of their Seattle condo and onto the beach as often as possible.

But all is not lost. Their house, cozy-for-two, comfortable-for-a-crowd, is working both ways. Coleen's mother and sister live on the island, and the couple have a passel of nieces and nephews, ages 15 to 33, whom they adore. When they speak of family, it's in one voice; enthusiastic.

"The house is kind of a family focal point," Norman says. "In general, we have the holidays."

"We said, if we don't have to be the ones raising them 24 hours a day, we can do this," Coleen says.

"We did a wedding here for our oldest niece, at sunset on the beach a few years ago," Norman adds. "And, we had 15 for Mother's Day this year."

The little house has a big finish: In the no-square-footage-left-unturned school of thought, a surprise lurks under the great-room stairs: an office. Opening a hidden door in the board-and-batten wall reveals a tiny room. Tucked inside is a computer desk, chair and bookcases. With the door open, the office even has a view of the water.

Coleen calls it the bonus room.

"We had thought it would end up being storage. The house is small, and to be able to have an office . . ."

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