(mellow music)
- The house was designed in the mid-40's
by my father, Pietro Belluschi.
The Burkes lived here for 25 years.
Dr. Burke passed away and the widow called my father
and said your favorite house is on the market.
If you're interested, you better get out here.
My father took one look at the house
and he bought it on the spot.
It was always a wonderful place to come,
and I never in a million years
ever thought that I would own it.
(mellow music)
In early 2009, my brother and I inherited the house.
The house was in somewhat need of repair.
One of the realtors said you know,
this is a possible tear-down.
And I just said absolutely not.
That began a long process of restoration of the main house,
addition to the main house, and then all the landscaping,
and bring the entire indoors
and outdoors together seamlessly.
Being the son of an architect,
I was exposed to the profession very early.
When I was four or five I'd go to his office
and see all these beautiful colored pencils,
and I did a lot of drawing.
That developed into painting.
One of my first jobs was working on a church with him.
I would be able to see the work that I did
get constructed and be finished, and I said aha.
That's when I got hooked on architecture.
- Tony designed the tea house,
which is obviously a lovely compliment to the main house.
- The tea house is 235 square feet of usable interior space.
It's very inviting.
It's a place where I can read, I can go take naps.
The main room is a bedroom convertible to a living room.
We have visitors, we have guests.
It becomes a dining room
when the dining table is folded out.
The third room is what I call the kitch-bath.
It's a kitchen and it's a bathroom.
Everything to the left is kitchen.
Everything to the right is a bathroom.
(mellow music)
The entry hall is also the clothes closet.
These three rooms are divided with Shoji screens
that fold up into the wall,
so it becomes all one room.
- [Marti] The entrance to the house is somewhat simple
and small, and humble.
Then you walk into the large expanse
of the living room, dining room area.
The whole house has a very
warm and welcoming feeling.
It's beautiful.
- [Tony] It's all combined, with glass walls
that look out to this wonderful vegetation and landscape.
The glass goes right up to the ceiling
and the ceiling goes all the way through
to the outside of the house.
- It's all window, and people are amazed by that.
They're drawn to look out the window,
which is a tribute to Pietro and his style,
and his ability to sight a house.
- My father understood the connection to the outdoors
and the simplicity.
He never embellished anything
with detail that wasn't necessary.
- The main house is almost totally as designed,
except for the kitchen.
- [Tony] The old kitchen didn't open up to the
circulation of the house,
so we completely demolished the old kitchen
and started all over again.
- [Marti] Tony did a masterful job
because it looks as if it should have always been there.
- We added some new materials, some of the natural woods,
which really were sympathetic
and in concert with the original house.
- In the original kitchen, the sink looked at a wall.
The kitchen Tony designed reorients it
so that there is a view not only of the outside
and Mount Hood, but there's also a view of the dining room,
so you can be at the kitchen sink
and still talk to your guests.
In many mid-century modern homes,
they have open shelves.
I didn't want open shelves because
I didn't want the dust, so we closed in all the shelves
and it still blends with the style of the home.
- There was a few very interesting things
that came with the original design.
One of them is the rotisserie
built in to the side of the stove
with the flue and the chimney.
It's a beautiful looking thing because it looks like
a medieval piece of architecture we keep.
- [Marti] The hood is copper.
It was here in 1948 with the original house.
It's never been polished and we don't let anyone touch it.
There are pans hanging around the stove,
which the original house had.
Also there was a broom closet,
and Tony made that into a pantry.
Many people come in and look at the new kitchen,
which is now twice the size of the old kitchen,
and say we can't tell what's old and what's new.
It looks like it's been here forever.
That's exactly what we were looking to do.
We have children and grandchildren,
so we needed to have more spaces to accommodate people.
So we said, well, we'll do an addition.
- The addition is
a media room/guest room/dressing room.
It's also my walk-in closet, and then above that is a loft,
which is an office/storage, and it's also the place
where are twin grandchildren can sleep when they come visit.
- There used to be an outdoor trellis
that you could walk underneath.
We will maintain that walkway, but it'll be indoors.
It'll be the space between the new and the old
with a skylight over it, and this light was so beautiful,
we said okay, this is gonna be the gallery.
- [Marti] And we both love art, so it's a great space
to display artwork
and artifacts that we love.
The bedroom is one of the rooms with a woven wood ceiling,
and the woven wood ceilings are very unique.
But I've never seen it as elegantly done as in this house.
- My father was one of the few people we know
who did two or three houses with woven wood ceilings
and it's three or four, or five different kinds of wood
that are woven together to create a wonderful look
and acoustically wonderful ceiling for bedrooms.
(mellow music)
My all-time favorite space in the house is the courtyard,
which is actually a room,
because the proportions of the courtyard
are like a great big rectangle
surrounded by these beautiful fir trees.
We have a Lee Kelly stainless steel sculpture at the end,
which kind of talks to both the tea house
and to the addition in a language all their own.
It's where architecture and art meet.
It's the most magical place.
We just love it there.
There was an existing stone wall that's out in the courtyard
that was made out of Mt. Adams stone,
that somehow was built before the house was ever built.
My father picked up the Mt. Adams stone material
and created the whole new fireplaces
in two different locations,
the north bedroom and the living room.
The stone goes with the wood,
which is a natural product in Oregon
because of Mt. Adams.
- I think it's turned out well.
It is so lovely
and it is such a wonderful experience to be here.
It's almost overwhelming.
People have been so interested in
what it was, what it is, how it goes together.
- This house has now become
one of the major stopping points in the northwest,
and particularly with architectural and design buffs.
- To date, we've had almost 3000 people
come through our home, and it's been wonderful.
- It's not that it's iconic.
It's the notion of timelessness.
There is something that's so timeless
about the simplicity and the elegance of this house.
Well, I think my father would
love what we've done.
We have created
a wonderful legacy between us,
and we're gonna be here for a long time
and we want to enjoy it.
We want it the way it is now,
and I think he would love it.
(mellow music)