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Aug 07 2015

What’s your vision of luxury living — square footage and mod cons or sustainability and soul?

The Shaw House by John Yeon
The Shaw House by John Yeon

The Homebuilders Association of Portland bills their annual Street of Dreams event as a luxury home show. And that’s what I expected when I made the trip to Lake Oswego with fellow Berkshire Hathaway brokers on Monday.

The 9 featured properties range in size from 4,100 to over 5,700 square feet and in price from $1.4+ to $2.7+ million. The hillside setting has open fields of wildflowers and many of the homes do a good job of bringing the outside in with floor-to-ceiling and clerestory windows, folding walls of glass and “outdoor rooms.”

But I came away disappointed.

The only home with an architect in the driver’s seat is not new. My personal favorite, it’s a remodel of a 1950 classic designed by John Yeon, a pioneer of the Northwest regional style. My photo and the dark gray paint don’t do justice to its clean, horizontal lines.

Other homes in the show have less graceful and more eclectic silhouettes. For example, the promotional brochure describes one as “classic Victorian design with a Mediterranean style and a unique, modern twist.”

In some cases, the quality of materials and finishes is sacrificed on the altar of square footage. For example, I spotted faux wood laminate on garage doors, a molded concrete fireplace in a great room, and concrete cladding masquerading as brick on an exterior.

Outdoor rooms have every mod con – built-in barbecues and countertops, sinks, dishwashers, sofas, tvs and water features. But most lots are small and some outdoor spaces overlook the same feature in a neighboring backyard.

The brochure points out that all homes in the show have improved efficiency and cost savings needed to qualify for an Energy Performance Score. But it doesn’t reveal actual scores for each property.

In any case, the scoring system compares homes of similar size to each other. The environmental footprint of a home is defined to a large extent by its physical footprint. In addition to being so large, some of the properties have laundry rooms on both floors (in other words, two washers and dryers), as many as 4 giant tv screens, two dishwashers and two refrigerators.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Street of Dreams. The Homebuilders Association deserves credit for inventing the show and running it continuously – through good times and bad.

But I wish less money and fewer resources had been spent on square footage and appliances, and more on design, materials and finishes, sustainability, and soul – key elements of luxurious living in my book.

The show runs through August 30. You can buy tickets online for $17 per person here.

Written by Catherine Quoyeser · Categorized: design, events, sustainability · Tagged: design, events, sustainability

Jun 03 2015

Want to learn about Portland neighborhoods? Take an architectural history walking tour

On tour with Eric Wheeler
On tour with Eric Wheeler

Want to learn more about Portland and its neighborhoods in good company? Architectural historian, Eric Wheeler, leads Meetup walking tours of the city along all compass points. With a long career in historic preservation and heritage tourism, he relocated from the Midwest about 6 years ago after falling for – in his words – “this unique, world-class city.”

Q: What makes Portland unique and world-class in your view?

A. Simply, the natural and human landscape. It’s a West Coast city not bound by the traditions or “shoulds” that prevail in the East and Midwest. And in recent years, Portland’s inventive spirit has attracted cultural creatives in the fine and performing arts, architectural design and urban livability.

Q: What’s your favorite building or architectural style in the city?

A: I love the residential, commercial and public buildings influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. In America we call this the Craftsman Style and it had a major impact on architectural design here from the 1890s to the 1930s, the period when Portland experienced a building and population boom.

Q: How did you get into the walking tour business?

A: I’ve spent much of my career as an architectural historian researching and writing reports, surveys and National Register nominations. But I’ve found even more satisfaction in leading walking tours. They give people an immediate and personal connection with the built environment. It makes my day when people say something like “Oh, so that’s what an American Foursquare looks like! Now I’ll notice that style every time I walk in my neighborhood.”

Q: How many different tours have you created and how do you go about it?

A: I just reorganized my file cabinet the other day and realized that I have over 50 different local walking tours I can pull “off the shelf.” Most are in downtown and the historic inner eastside and westside neighborhoods, but they range from Forest Grove to Gresham and Vancouver to Oregon City. I often say that every neighborhood and town has some buildings of historic and architectural interest.

As a relative newcomer to the area, I usually start with my own curiosity about a neighborhood. I find a centrally located spot and go from there. I take my camera and shoot photos of buildings and sites I want to include on the tour. I make some notes in the field and then go back home to my computer. Though I like old-fashioned archival research, so much is available online nowadays.

Q: It’s easy to see why newcomers and visitors to Portland sign up for walking tours. What brings long-time residents out?

A: Some of my most faithful customers are natives or near-natives who enjoy seeing their hometown from the perspective of a trained architectural historian and recovering Midwesterner. Often they say that tours help them to see the city with “new eyes” – a huge compliment! And, of course, neighborhoods are changing in this early 21st-century Portland boom.

Q: Do you have a top touring memory?

A:  I would have to call them “serendipitous” moments – the homeowner who invites us in for an impromptu tour, or the participant who shares that their grandfather built the landmark we’re standing in front of. So it’s the personal connections between people and places that make this work fascinating and memorable.

To learn more about Eric’s walking tours, visit Positively Portland.

Written by Catherine Quoyeser · Categorized: buyers, events, lifestyles, neighborhoods · Tagged: buyers, events, lifestyles, neighborhoods