Photography by Jeremy Bittermann, courtesy of MW Works.
When a young Seattle couple with three children toured a 1961 house by locally known architect Ibsen Nelsen, they fell in love with not only its striking style but also the sprawling midcentury garden that filled its 10,700-square-foot lot.
The new front door is a custom design, made of heat-treated oak planks in a pivoting steel frame. The heat treatment, explains architect Steve Mongillo, makes the wood more resistant to moisture and decay.
The courtyard garden, newly visible from the front door. The design team replaced the closet with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so the courtyard garden is the first thing visible upon entering the house.
Before the renovation, the courtyard was visible mainly from the living room. Though the courtyard is fully enclosed, the design team visually brought it indoors by planting a small patch of black mondo grass inside, in line with a strip of the same grass planted outdoors.
The courtyard’s footprint remained the same, but a water feature planted with water lily and papyrus is a new addition.
The view of the courtyard from the carport.
“It is not intended to be a flower garden,” says Matt Wittman of Wittman Estes.
The landscape architects designed an integrated fountain of concrete and bronze for the water feature, “for its soothing sound as well as a focal point,” Wittman says. Most of the new windows are operable so that the sound of water may be heard from inside the house.
The living room, as seen from the dining room.
The back of the house looks toward Seattle’s Lake Washington. Though the house’s footprint remained unchanged, the architects flattened a formerly vaulted dining room ceiling to allow for a new, top-floor deck off the master bedroom.
The new roof over the carport is painted, raised-seam metal. A new driveway of Stepstone pavers replaced a narrower driveway paved in a basketweave pattern.
In typical midcentury style, the original kitchen was designed as a utility room, not a social space.
The main-level floor plan shows the driveway and carport, courtyard garden, ipe wood deck, and backyard lawn.