Let there be light
stunning views influenced rendezvous home’s airy design By Don Nelson
Kai, the McGregors’ Labrador retriever, relaxes in the light-filled living room of their Rendezvous home.
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andy and Leeann McGregor lived in a big house with a scenic setting in Fairbanks, Alaska, for 30 years. When it came time to retire, Leeann says, “we wanted another place that makes us feel like we’re living in a glass tent ... We wanted a place that made us visually happy.” Their new home several meandering miles back in the Rendezvous area does that and more for the McGregors, who bought their 20acre hillside parcel sight unseen five years ago – after looking at many other lots around the valley – when local real estate agent Anne Eckmann 26 Methow Home
put them on to it. The Seattle-and-Methow-based architectural team of Ray and Mary Johnston eventually went to work analyzing the site and listening to the McGregors’ ideas for a scaled-down living space that took advantage of sweeping views. The main components the McGregors sought: a big, comfortable general living area; a spacious kitchen for serious cooking and inevitable gathering; relatively small bedrooms; and numerous access points to the great outdoors. Mostly, they wanted light.
Emphasis on views
The McGregors were familiar with the Methow from hunting trips here, and have friends in the valley who formerly lived in Fairbanks. Their home site’s previous owners had already done some excavating, put in a driveway, extended electric service to the parcel and had a septic tank and wells on the property. The McGregors, who have two grown children, gave themselves five years to plan the house and their move, which was completed in fall 2012. For the first three years after
Photo by Don Nelson
they purchased it, the parcel sat empty. After doing some research on architects, the McGregors met with the Johnstons in Seattle and began to sketch the outlines of a new home. The Johnstons walked the property to decide how the house should be oriented, and came up with an Lshaped footprint, mostly on one floor. The Johnstons “had a vision for the house,” Leeann says. Through some “give and take,” the architects listened well and the builders were responsive. “It was a good group to work with,” she says. Ray Johnston said the first