The owner knows very little about the original designer of the house and has spent the last few years since his purchase in doing remodels, adding an addition behind the left side (one bedroom was made into an office, the garage on that side closed off for storage, parking moved to the rear part of the addition and additional family room space added to that side). The house has a full basement that is used as an apartment by Jeff's mother (it has a private entrance and driveway on the right side of the yard, below the decking). The master bedroom and master bath have both been reworked by Dowd as well as the rather involved landscaping.
When purchased, the rear wall had been pushed out to incorporate the patio (original fire-pit style grill is still attached and uses the existing chimney for ventilation, though it's unused). An arbor-style extension (extending the existing beams past the rear wall glass-wall) was added to the back to provide some much needed shade to the rear of the house. The front door has been replaced by a really beautiful, hand-carved mahogany double door from Brazil. The over-all effect is a large living expanse open to both front and back with some amazing birch trees obscuring the street from the living room.
Jeff decided to keep and have restored the original wall-mounted oven with slide-out stove. To the right of the sink is an original counter-top Nutone blender unit. The bathroom remodel is stunning, with a large tiled tub and exterior sliding glass to the exterior and over-head skylight. The real beauty of the house is in it's modernistic, very Asian design elements - the owner had viewed the botanical gardens in Portland used these as influences in the deck railing design (top rail is roof-beveled to shed water).
Photo Album here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14338634@N02/sets/72157602234061713/
-- John
The second house on the tour was also designed by Robert Green and construction was finished in 1964, I believe. The story is that RG had designed the home for a client who then decided not to build. Around the same time, RG was designing homes for the Amberwood development - this was a unique neighborhood with a business model of selling unbuilt lots - the buyer would then either purchase plans and construction from the developer or bring in his/her own architect and building crew. In this case, RG built one custom house (the Nicoll house - more here: http://www.modusmodern.com/robertgreen/nicoll.asp) and had been hired to build the entryway to the neighborhood - the developer saw the original plans Robert had created and hired him to adapt them to the lot it's currently on - the developer's name was Robert Witcher (more images and the plan here: http://www.modusmodern.com/robertgreen/arrowhead.asp).Part 3, the Dowd residence, will go up shortly.
