Zoé Stone and her father navigate tricky terrain as they create a serene home with charred wood siding, cantilevered decks, and custom built-ins and furniture.
Although Zoé Stone has spent the past several years at Sera, an award-winning architecture firm in Portland, Oregon, designing her own home was a new and unique challenge.
The site, in the city’s West Hills looking out toward Marquam Nature Park, is a wooded slope with a creek running through it that had never been developed. This added engineering challenges and costs, as well as the need for extensive environmental review and stormwater management plans, which took paperwork and patience (not to mention the planting of approximately 30 trees).
Designer Zoé Stone’s home is nestled into a forested hillside that had never before been built on. Others had shied away from its engineering challenges, but not Zoé and her dad.
Charlie Correales
Zoé, founder of Zoé Stone Design, had been looking for a lot to build on for over a year when she saw a small ad for the property, and decided to visit “on a whim,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Wait, this is actually really awesome.’”
Unlike other prospective buyers, Zoé wasn’t daunted by the site’s topographical and regulatory challenges. Besides her own architectural training and experience, she had a trustworthy builder who could handle everything from foundations to furniture: her dad. Al Stone, a general contractor, had built the family’s home in Belgium when Zoé was a child.
Nearly every room in the home—from the top-floor living area to the downstairs bedrooms, opens to an outdoor patio.
Zoé Stone
The 2,000-square-foot house, which Zoé shares with her dog, Pepper, feels spacious thanks to a wide-open kitchen/dining/living room with vaulted ceilings on the main floor. This level opens to a cantilevered deck, as does the lower floor, where two bedrooms and an office are located. And the interior spaces feel unified thanks to custom built-ins and furniture made by Al.
Habitats and Helicals
Zoé: The city wanted to keep the integrity of the site as far as plants and trees, because it’s good animal habitat. We get a lot of deer: a whole family this morning. We have a lot of owls, and bunnies that somehow persist even though we also have a lot of coyotes. We also had to have a setback from the creek. At the time, the city was adjusting its protection zones on either side, so there was a lot of back and forth.
Before construction, Zoé spent two years overcoming regulatory hurdles related to the property’s wildlife zone and existing trees.
Zoé Stone
See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: A Designer Builds Her First House for $659K—on a Fully Forested Portland Hillside
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