This new Tudor Revival styled home, situated in Portland’s Laurelhurst area, was designed to blend with one of the city’s distinctive old neighborhoods. While there are a variety of existing house styles along the nearby streets, the Tudor Revival style with its characteristic steeply pitched roof lines, arched doorways, and heavy chimneys occurs throughout the neighborhood and was the ideal style choice for the new home. The house was conceived with a steeply pitched asymmetric gable facing the street with the longer rake sweeping down in a gentle arc to stop near the entry. The front door is sheltered by a gracefully arched canopy supported by twin wooden corbels. Additional details such as the stuccoed walls with their decorative banding that wraps the house or the flare of the stucco hood over the second floor windows or the use of unique materials such as the Old Carolina brick window sills and entry porch paving add to the character of the house. But while the form and details for the home are drawn from styles of the last century, the home is certainly of this era with noticeably cleaner lines, details, and configuration than would occur in older variants of the style.

When approaching the house from the street up along the steps that flank the driveway, visitors are led to a beautifully shaped and detailed porch with a beveled recessed entry that sits below the arched canopy. As they pass the reeded front door, guests are greeted inside in a gracious entry hall flanked by the more formal spaces of the house. As they continue along the central hallway, alongside the stairway with its decorative iron railing, they will arrive next at the great room set at the back of the house.

This large room is the heart of the home. Windows on three sides of the great room fill the space with natural light and help make the space comfortable for the daily routine of casual family living as well as for gatherings of friends and guests. The great room is anchored on one end by a beautiful open kitchen and the other by a classically inspired fireplace. To the back, the room has a commanding view of the backyard and lap pool, a view which draws you to the outside once more. 

There you find three principal spaces for outdoor living. Tucked in along side the great room is a generous covered porch with a large skylight above to filter sunshine down on the porch and into the great room. Down a few brief steps from the porch a short path leads to the lap pool, perfect for a refreshing workout. From the pool it is only a couple more steps down to the open, yet cozy, patio area with a built-in wood fired pizza oven set along one side to allow for entertaining during those long summer evenings.

Successfully creating a new home, such as this, to blend in with an established old Portland neighborhood requires the care, knowledge, and experience that Cella Architecture provides.