With their only child shipped off to college, a pair of outdoor sports enthusiasts found themselves making the trek every weekend from their family home in Gig Harbor, Washington to their small A-frame cabin about 60 miles away.
Photography by Mark Woods, courtesy of Robert Hutchison Architecture.
Perched near the glacier-fed White River just five miles from the summit of Mount Rainier, the longtime getaway was rural but accessible and allowed for outdoor sports year-round.
The house is clad in Western red cedar and treated with Cabot Semi-Transparent Stain in black. The window at far right frames the view from the guest bedroom.
The project required some minor hardscaping, including a gravel parking court and a walkway leading to the front door, but there was no landscaping on the project; here, said the architect, they wanted to “let the site be the site.”
A trapezoidal window to the right of the courtyard looks up toward the trees and “brings this really beautiful southwest light into the space.”
A gravel courtyard extends off the entryway path.
“The courtyard is very architectural, not natural,” said Hutchison.
Inside, a long bank of glass doors alongside an open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen is oriented toward the river. They settled on wood mixed with glass and drywall, plus 2-by-4-foot gray porcelain floor tiles which run the length of the interior.
On the other side of the fireplace mass is a covered outdoor patio of ipe wood, framed in concrete.
As budget allows, the owners intend to add a small sauna room—clad in the same black-stained cedar as the house—at the end of the outdoor patio.
The house is sited in a community of mostly vacation homes, and the nearest cabin is about 50 feet away.
The property is located within an elk management habitat with a wetland just to the south; the team took care to minimize the home’s environmental impact and to retain as many trees as possible.
The house in relation to its wooded, riverfront site. The house is set back about 100 feet from the river; from inside, you can see glimpses of the water through the trees, but the main experience of the river is by sound.