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When we start a project,
we’re not only digesting the client’s needs and wants,
but also what does this house want?
What does the architectural history teach us?
It’s based in responsiveness,
responding to the architecture
and the context of that architecture.
And being responsive, the goal is that the outcome
will be really holistic and thoughtful.
So our real goal after talking with Liz and David
about their needs and wants
was to make sure that we kept the original architecture,
which was really resonating with Liz,
but also made sure to layer on top of that
great space planning
and to make sure that it felt
really comfortable and inviting,
just a real family home where everyone would wanna gather,
and to make sure that it had all of that love of nature
brought from the outside in.
I’m Mira Eng-Goetz,
and today I’m going to take you behind the design
of the historic Albee House in Portland, Oregon.
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The Albee house was built in 1912.
It was designed by A. E. Doyle,
who was a really prominent architect
at the turn of the century.
The house was commissioned
by the then-mayor of Portland, Mayor Albee.
It was developed at the same time as Laurelhurst Park,
which abuts the property.
You can see from this photo
that the house is in a Georgian revival style,
so the facade is pretty symmetrical,
whereas the back facade, which faces the park,
is much more asymmetrical
and I think actually more beautiful.
So there’s this juxtaposition
between really formal stately symmetrical design
from the Georgian revival facade at the front,
and then something a little bit more playful
and organic and asymmetrical.
That juxtaposition is something
that carries through in the design, both inside and out,
very rectangular stately rooms
that then have a softening to them
through the interior design,
the layering on of textiles and playful motifs, nature,
and of course, some modernity.
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When Liz and David approached us,
they said they really wanted to celebrate the charm
and original character of their home,
but they are a modern family
who have a lot of expectations around lifestyle.
This is a common conundrum with these older homes.
What do the bones of the project want to be?
How do you respect the existing architecture
while making thoughtful shifts
that can accommodate a modern lifestyle?
Because this property is so important here in Portland,
it is registered
in the National Register of Historic Places.
We really couldn’t make major changes
to the exterior facade,
whereas on the interior,
although we really strive
to respect the existing architecture,
we had a little more leeway there.
There were quite a few strategies that we employed.
The biggest really is just in the space planning.
On the main level,
we were really concerned about giving Liz
the best cook’s kitchen that we could give her,
given the spatial constraints of the home.
To achieve the best kitchen for Liz possible,
we also got very clever
about locating her 48-inch-wide refrigerator
in a little passthrough just off of the kitchen
leading to the breakfast room.
It allowed us to have a lot of uninterrupted counter space,
which is so key to a good cook’s kitchen.
It also allowed us to get in a sizable range,
which was very important for Liz.
There is a lot of exposed storage
in the way of a deVOL kitchen rail,
also half-fronted drawers
that allow you to really see the contents
so you don’t have to open a door
in order to understand what’s behind it.
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Now we’re standing in the office.
This is where Liz has her own sanctuary.
It originally was an outdoor porch,
and these windows and doors were added after the fact.
When we first came into this space,
there was a lot of brick that was concealed by drywall,
so we made sure to remove that and then clean the brick up
and celebrate materiality that was there originally.
So this room, it does feel particularly special
because it has such an indoor/outdoor feel,
and where it’s positioned on the property,
Liz can look out over her apiary,
she can look towards Laurelhurst Park,
and it just does feel like it’s truly enveloped by nature.
Laurelhurst Park was developed
at the same time as the house,
and it’s a public park that abuts the property.
It’s beloved by Portlanders and has an adorable duck pond.
The brick used for this house
is the same brick used in Laurelhurst Park.
In addition to this space,
we created a greenhouse on the property.
So that was designed
by our landscape architect Courtney Skybak,
and it’s situated in the southwest corner of the property.
It truly is where Liz
can feel connected to the outdoors and her garden.
Liz is a maximalist and also an Anglophile,
so she wanted to take inspiration
from gardens she’d seen in the Cotswolds.
She wanted to make sure that she had an herb garden
that was very close to the kitchen
that she could use while she’s cooking,
and the greenhouse is just kind of
the grounding hub of all of that.
So we’ve talked a lot about bringing the outside
to the interior design,
but we did take the inside out
when we designed the greenhouse.
We have beautiful old farmhouse-style sinks
that came from the basement’s laundry,
and when you look at them,
they have all of this patina and character from years of use
and a gorgeous yellow color that we were really inspired by.
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Now we’re in the living room,
so we wanted to make sure we had a very generous sofa,
and in order to create a seating arrangement
that really felt intimate in this large room,
Jessica came up with the idea
to create the world’s largest coffee table.
It’s a single slab of quartzite
and has a steel powder-coated base.
Another big move that we made was to change out the hearth,
the surround, and the mantle of the existing firebox.
So we used a tile that we love from Motawi Tileworks
in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
and you can see there’s a lot of great motif in that tile.
It’s beautifully handmade and glazed.
So this is the living room as it was originally.
It has a very different fireplace surround
and mantle and hearth,
but the fire box is in the same location,
the curved bay is just as it is now,
and the millwork and the casework is all the same.
We designed this wall mural
that goes on every single wall and the ceilings,
so you can see there’s a geometry to it
that is quite repetitive.
We looked at Art Nouveau motifs when we designed it
and then asked our friends over at Lonesome Pictopia
to come and paint it by hand.
And when they came and painted,
they added all of these little creatures,
which are seen through insects and birds.
There are even spider webs and dragon flies all over.
So that was a wonderful way to bring that nature in.
As we travel throughout the house,
there is a wonderful process of discovery
seeing these hand-painted creatures all over the place.
They’re in very unexpected little corners.
You’ll just see bees and mice and bunnies bouncing around.
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Now we’re in the dining room,
and there are quite a few
original interior architectural details
that we lovingly refurbished,
including the mahogany paneling and trim work.
There are some beautiful pocket doors
with original stained glass paneling,
and the stained glass that’s over the buffet
is original as well.
We’ve talked a lot about the aesthetic movements
that have inspired our design of this home,
and you can see that here.
It’s the Art Nouveau movement in the chandelier,
and then we have an Arts and Crafts rug on the floor.
And this buffet in the background is an original design
with Art Deco motifs on the front and sides.
Another big addition to this room was the gilding.
The walls and the ceiling are hand-gilded in brass
by Lonesome Pictopia.
When we first came into this room,
it was very dark and had really heavy window treatments,
so the gilding was a real way
to reflect and bounce light around,
create a certain luminosity in the space.
Another thing that we love about the dining room
is that it’s a real hub of the home.
It’s connected to four different rooms
and really is centrally located
within the house’s footprint.
This is pretty rare for a dining room of this era,
and we wanted to embrace that.
There’s very little in the way of alterations
to the interior architecture for that reason.
So one of the spaces that’s adjacent to the dining room
is the parlor.
So we made it an important goal to connect the dining room
and the parlor together aesthetically
like they’re speaking to each other.
Here we have a Madison and Grow wallpaper on the walls,
and the gold and the color of the background
is reflected in the buffet in the dining room.
We love this room
because it’s a more intimate place to socialize.
Another big element within this space
is the Tyler Hayes puzzle painting.
This painting actually was the inspiration for the rug,
the accent pillows,
and even this tiger mountain upholstery fabric.
And the scene itself is very much of the Pacific Northwest
in that it’s a scene of the Columbia River,
which is just a few miles away.
Portland is known as having its roots in logging,
and when this house was built,
Portland was really doing its best
to kind of celebrate that history,
but also move beyond it a little bit
and become a little more of an elevated town.
So I love seeing this puzzle piece
and thinking about that history
and the history of this home.
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Upstairs where we have quite a few private areas,
we did a little more space planning,
adding additional storage to the bedrooms
and reconfiguring all of the bathrooms.
We added closets to the bedrooms.
Reconfigured the main bedroom
to allow for an uninterrupted wall
that the bed could be pushed up against.
Other changes include the main bathroom
just really being expanded
so that it felt like a true primary bathroom
with his and her sinks and a water closet and a full tub.
What we’re trying to achieve
when we space plan for a historic home and a modern family
is make sure that any new footprint of a space or a room
remains a rectangle in shape.
And this is because in traditional homes,
we have a lot of millwork and casework.
Rooms with irregular shapes really don’t allow
for the kind of graceful transitions that we want
for things like molding,
and it feels really awkward
because there aren’t really great ways to terminate the trim
or to change materials.
It makes perfect sense in a modern home.
It doesn’t make any sense in a traditional home.
What we always try to do
is keep the rooms to rectangular shapes,
and if we want to really connect one space to another,
we do that through a very thoughtful cased opening.
A really important element
that we try to create in a bedroom suite is sanctuary.
We have a bedroom, of course,
but then there’s a generous bathroom, a bedroom lounge,
and a dressing room.
There are some original features,
the windows, the flooring, some of the casing,
but we changed quite a lot
because there was no great headboard wall.
The original bed was floating catty-cornered in the room
because there was no uninterrupted wall
to push it up against.
So we had to really reconfigure
the openings off of this bedroom
to allow for a headboard wall.
Another design tenet that we really live by
at Jessica Helgerson Interior Design
is just making sure that a home feels truly cohesive.
Whether you’re in the bathroom or the lounge,
the dressing room, or the bedroom,
the color palette is really cohesive.
You can actually see a bird from this wallpaper
that was hand-painted in the dressing room.
It’s almost as if it escaped the wallpaper.
In the lounge, we also have some hand painting elements
that are captured in creatures from downstairs
in the living room.
We have bees and mice just scurrying and buzzing round.
So that whole concept of cohesion in design,
you can see that throughout this whole home.
There isn’t a space that you go into
that feels separate or of a different theme.
It all feels really good together
because we designed it holistically.
The wallpapers and the pattern work is all of a certain era
and of a certain palette.
The plumbing fixtures are all from the same line,
in this case, Waterworks.
The lighting throughout, which is very influenced
and inspired by Art Nouveau and Wiener Werkstatte.
That attention to cohesion and holistic design
extends not only to the really gorgeous celebrated spaces,
but also to the more utilitarian spaces,
such as the laundry room.
It wants to be a space that is celebrated,
that you want to be in, even though you’re doing hard work.
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