Having grown up in Detroit, Ann Sacks recalls eating many a meal at Big Boy restaurants. When she learned a colleague was ready to part with the fast-food icon, Ann couldn't resist taking it home. Today, Big Boy stands watch on the main-level deck. Prized fuschia-colored chairs and plastic table found by Ann and husband Robert 15 years ago make a cozy reading nook in an otherwise expansive space. Living-room furnishings include an Eames sofa upholstered in pet-proof pumpkin Naugahyde. Princess Yellow limestone floors give the room a solid foundation, while bamboo plants warm up the urban space.

No long, weighty decisions at the design center for this pair. Rather, they turned to the classifieds, donned walking shoes and set out for the nearest estate sale.

One might expect from the woman whose name has become synonymous with high-end tile something just a bit more, well, upscale. But even the pink and purple skirt the diminutive Sacks wears on a tour through the house comes from a second-hand store. So what is it? Thriftiness? A passion for recycling? Perhaps an aversion to anything new?

Actually, says Ann, none of the above.

"I've watched a lot of projects built from the ground up and they are meticulously planned, but I'm not much of a planner," she explains. "It's more my style to just decide I kind of like something and to do it. I was always too impatient to think about ordering furniture, to plan ahead, find the fabric, have it built . . . I'm not that organized."

She's also not keen on keeping up designerly appearances.

Twenty years ago, a friend asked Ann to deliver this Naugahyde and chrome bar to the dump. Instead, Ann took the '50s piece home. It's been part of the décor ever since.

"I don't view my house as an extension of my business; I view it as an extension of my family life. There's a big distinction there," says Sacks, who sold her Portland-based tile firm to Kohler in 1989 but remains in charge of all design aspects. "It's hard for professionals in the field who consider themselves designers not to feel that the house is a tremendous reflection of their personal life. That's not a problem for me."

It took visits to just two estate sales for Ann and Robert, an attorney and real-estate developer, to find the vintage pieces that now color their urban abode: an Eames sofa compact in pumpkin Naugahyde; Eero Saarinen tulip chairs and kitchen table; six classic Bauhaus-style cane-and-steel dining chairs, an Olympia dining/conference table and a pair of gold wool felt chairs for the living room.

What better to go with the contemporary Knoll credenza, black Naugahyde bar (once destined for the dump, but rescued by Ann) and the prized set of fuchsia chairs the pair has been carting from home to home for well over a decade?

The simple metal stairway offers optical interest, while rows upon rows of family photographs color white walls in memories. Lights are hand-blown glass from France.

"We knew from the moment we saw those chairs 15 years ago at a warehouse sale that we wanted the house to feel like that," Ann says. "I used two in my office and Robert used two in his. Every time people came to my office and sat in those chairs, I'd say, 'Be careful, those are going to be the chairs in my new house.' "

And what a new house it is. Constructed of glass and steel, the 2,800-square-foot "mini-skyscraper" sits in an old neighborhood in Northwest Portland on a street so fashionable locals have dubbed it "Trendy-Third." Watched over by a 4-foot-tall statue of the restaurant icon Big Boy, an integral part of Ann's Detroit childhood, the living-room deck offers a view of the Fremont Bridge, all manner of old city rooftops and the occasional church steeple.

Inside, walls and floors are done largely in neutral tones; color comes from the vintage furnishings, as well as the couple's collection of glass and modern art. Custom light fixtures, hand-blown in France, are shaped like ripe, golden pears or hang in delicately colored sconces. Several walls are vertical-grain walnut, and bamboo plants line one wall of glass. Floors, in large Princess Yellow limestone tile from Italy, were installed first, then the walls were lowered to an inch above them. The effect, Ann says, is to make the floor feel less applied and more like a foundation.

The mini-skyscraper occupies what was once the parking lot of Ann's showroom. The 2,800 square feet of living space begin on the fourth floor.
Views from the master-suite deck take in the trendy old Twenty-Third Street neighborhood. Here, she spends a moment with Ray, a cat once bound for the pound.

Upstairs, the master suite is simple and predominantly white. "When you have pets and they live indoors there's no color that works," Ann explains. Bath floors are French Blue limestone; walls, glass tile from India in varying shades of taupe, gold and gray. A family room at the top of the stairs features matching love seats slip-covered in white muslin — again, a nod to the family pets: Bob, a mutt rescued from the pound, and Ray, a cat once shelter-bound — and accented with a red, hand-knit afghan and pillows Ann found at Urban Outfitters during one of her daily strolls. ("I'll tell you," she confides, "the walking, which was the intent of this move, has turned out to be somewhat of an expensive habit.")

On the walls hang row upon row of pictures of family and friends.

"When people come over, they love to stand and look. They get such a kick out of seeing themselves. If you keep your pictures in albums, you really don't ever look . . . We look at these constantly. We never get tired of them," Ann says.

Nor does she ever get tired of entertaining the friends in the photos, which is why the kitchen — Princess Yellow limestone floors, gray wood cabinets, French Blue limestone countertops — was the only room in the house Ann had changed on architect Brad Cloepfil's plans.

"This is not a home in which drinks are served, but people don't cook," Ann says. "The kitchen had to be a part of the house, but not in the way that people have a great room, but then they have a formal living space. I knew it had to be just one space from the dining room to kitchen to living room. When people come to eat, we start having something to eat in the living room, and then we all go to the kitchen and in some manner help with dinner and then we sit in the dining room. No one is ever separated."

Ann and Robert moved to their urban oasis seeking to spend less time on the freeway and more time enjoying the city terrain. It's everything, Ann says, they hoped for.

"To that extent, this move has been completely successful. It sounds like a small thing, but it just makes you appreciate more the city and people and everything I think about living here. Everything that I thought would be positive about the move has been positive. I really didn't focus on any negatives."

Lori Tobias is a free-lance writer living in Newport, Ore. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.