PROSPECT & Refuge

Architecture Inspired by the Natural World

Though Russel DeLombard and Tina Gilbert spent their careers in the building industry—DeLombard as an architect and Gilbert in commercial construction management—it wasn’t until they designed and built their own home that they got to truly release the spectrum of their creativity and talent.

BY ALLI SCHUCHMAN | PHOTOS BY DAVID COHEN

DeLombard’s vision for the Port Madison home was partly inspired by the work of Harvard biologist, naturalist, entomologist and author Edward O. Wilson, known for his study of biophilia. Biophilia posits that our inherent attraction to nature may be biologically based, that what’s pleasing to the eye and soul is likely genetic and probably key to our survival. Wilson’s research went so far as to examine architecture, citing the 20th-century designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, who pulled the constructs of biophilia through his iconic buildings, something that arguably made them so appealing.

It's not hard to see Wright’s influence in the Port Madison home, or to feel the biophilia (once you learn what that is). Gilbert explained that its southern, beach side’s openness contrasts with its more solid north side. “It makes you feel unconsciously protected. You feel both prospect and refuge,” she said.

The home does feel peaceful and intuitive. DeLombard said he achieved its continuity by extending the ceilings, the soffits and even the flooring from the interior to the exterior. “They're the same materials, so it reinforces the openness by making it feel like you're outside even when you're inside,” he said.

A lot of geometry went into the design, too. DeLombard explained that its equilateral triangular layout creates a more natural flow than would a rectilinear plan. Repetition of triangles and hexagons can be seen throughout, which required a lot of mapping out, and then equal amounts of execution, so that the points came together at precise intersections.

In addition to its thought-provoking design, an unmissable feature is the wood. Thirteen thousand linear feet of it. “This is all western red cedar that we bought up in Forks from the tribes,” said Gilbert, describing the board-and-reverse-batten panels that run horizontally from floor to ceiling. “It was all fallen dead. We had it rough cut up there, brought it down and then we milled and finished it in the wood shop.”

DeLombard said that when the old growth cedars were originally felled, they weren’t worth logging, so they were left lying on the ground, partially burned or rotting. Since the wood was relatively undesirable, he explained that only the best parts of it were salvaged. “Usually, cedar has all kinds of knots in it, but this is 100-year-old tight grain,” he said. “There's no knots in it anywhere.”

Today, that same, once overlooked cedar is so sought after that people go to great lengths to get their hands on it, sometimes going as far as airlifting it out with a helicopter—a point which makes the two painstaking years it took to hand-finish it worthwhile. Luckily the pair had the time. “We’d poured the concrete and then we stopped because we didn't have very much money,” said Gilbert, who said that while their budget caught up, they just worked on the wood. After that was done, “we were able to start on the 3-D part,” she said.

The couple chose mahogany where the red cedar couldn’t be used because it is too soft for doors and windows. DeLombard made all those on site too, as well as the shelving, cabinets and built-in furniture. All the wood is stained the same striking red hue, as are the radiant red dye cast concrete floors with saw-cut grid lines, which contribute to the home’s largely monotone, calming palette.

The house’s angular ship feel is accentuated by sliding pocket doors to segment it out when needed. “Since it's just the two of us, we usually leave them open all the time,” said Gilbert, explaining that their daughter has long since left the nest and is now a tenured professor at University of California Santa Barbara. (Though the pair still sweetly reference the second bedroom as hers, even though she’s never lived in the house.)

A counterpoint to the all the wood is sandstone, sourced from Yelm, Washington, which jackets the four fireplaces. Within the fireplaces, structural steel anchors to the frame of the house and provides exceptional stability in case of an earthquake. DeLombard pointed out the painstaking work that was done to cut and notch the wood into the shape of the stone where the materials meet, handiwork he credits to the talented craftspeople they worked with, one of whom he dubbed a miracle guy.

The home is designed for year-round comfort, its south-facing windows filtering sun inside in the winter months as its overhangs cast shade in the summertime. The radiant floor works similarly, heating in cold months and cooling when it’s hotter, and the cantilevered outdoor overhang provides shelter no matter the weather.

Special touches include a gutter that DeLombard designed to reflect water onto the ceiling to mimic a beautiful, dappled effect they noticed while the home was being built when the rain fell onto the exposed slab. Integrated into the southern doors are salvaged 100-year-old prismatic glass tiles that had to be painstakingly fashioned to meet the sandstone’s edge. One of Gilbert’s requests was for an outdoor tub and shower, which further connect the interior to the water beyond, as does an inset water feature at the patio’s edge. “In the summer it’s filled with lilies and fish, just goldfish because the herons and raccoons get everything,” said Gilbert.

When DeLombard was designing and choosing materials for the sophisticated 1,700-square-foot home, he was also thinking much, much further down the road. When the time comes, he said that it was premeditated to be deconstructable and recyclable, including all its lumber, siding and paneling. In an elegantly written manifesto of sorts, DeLombard explained that its interior shelving and solid wood tops can be removed and salvaged, and as the wide clear cedar boards are held in place by the battens and not face nailed, the finish can be sanded or planed off and the wood reused. Although DeLombard and Gilbert did a huge part of the heavy lifting, they were quick to mention the team who worked alongside them during the home’s construction. “Without Jeff Waldroop, Pat Mitchell, Jim Hodges, Ken Short, Kim Warren, Debra Greiner and Betty Nockton, we simply could not have done this,” said Gilbert.

The couple isn’t done creating yet, even though they’ve been in the house 18 years. Gilbert is back to finishing boards for a studio over the garage, in addition to still professionally working on an 8-story, 84-unit affordable housing project in Ballard for St. Luke's. She also recently lent her managerial talents to the ReHome project alongside Friends of the Farms, Clark Construction, Housing Resources Bainbridge and Coates Design. DeLombard is still milling wood and working on cars as well as doing architectural design work.

DeLombard and Gilbert once kept a sailboat moored off their beach, but they sold it last year and now have a 14-foot boat to venture out into the harbor. Neighborhood kids routinely drop by on their way up and down the beach, and a dog from a couple of houses up likes to lie on the patio when he needs a rest from the action at his own home. Must be the biophilia.