Slide Show: Greatest Houses
Almost entirely self-taught as an architect, John Yeon completed his first house at age 27 for the lumber baron Aubrey Watzek. It became an instant classic and soon was published about widely and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art as a regional int
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
Looking back at his career in 1981, Yeon noted, “Regional architecture does not happen simply, automatically, or unselfconsciously . . . it results from deliberate aesthetic resistance to ubiquitous popular fashions…” The Watzek House is the emb
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
In 1937, the International Style was all the rage with free-flowing space divided by partitions, what Yeon called “the house of cards syndrome.” By contrast, Yeon designed the Watzek House with discreet spaces, or what he described as “a sequence of r
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
Yeon’s father was a successful lumberman (who, among other accomplishments, developed one of Portland’s earliest and most elegant high-rises and oversaw the construction of the Columbia River Gorge Highway) as was Aubrey Watzek. Yeon designed the hous
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
This photograph of the Watzek House became the key icon of the Northwest Regional Style. As Yeon bemusedly described it in 1981: “On a clear day shortly after the house was finished, an astute photographer chanced to drive by and stopped to take a sin
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
Though Portland Monthly’s judges of the “10 Greatest Homes” did not in any way organize their selections around Yeon, he both touched and was touched by many of the architects behind our list. The Sutor House, for instance, was built across t
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
Belluschi’s interiors drew very much from the International Style but also his own roots in early Italian modernism. And he, too, found Northwest woods to be a ripe material for reinterpretation as in this delicately curving veneer wall paneling.
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
The Sutor House has been beautifully maintained by the same owner for over three decades with few changes. Though Belluschi went on to an illustrious, international career, this, one of his first houses, testifies to his rich interpretation of the Nor
Photography by Yeon Center, University of Oregon
Few architects had such a wide early influence on Portland as Albert E. Doyle. He designed everything from downtown’s white terra cotta landmarks like Meier & Frank to the Multnomah County Library to the first buildings of Reed College. He also de
Photography by The Oregon Historical Society
Beautifully sited on a large piece of property below Vista Avenue, the Cobb House affords one of the best “curb views” in the city, a Jacobethan masterpiece.
Photography by The Oregon Historical Society
As the heir to the Meier & Frank department store fortunes, M. Lloyd Frank spared no expense for what was in 1924 a country estate. For the job, he imported the New York architect Herman Brookman who hailed from the era of the master craftsman arc
Photography by Lewis & Clark College
The home overlooks acres of gardens with an axial view of Mount Hood. The estate is now the presidential administrative offices for Lewis & Clark College. Brookman stayed on in Portland, but his most visible work of architecture is the Temple Beth
Photography by Lewis & Clark College
Saul Zaik is part of Portland’s “second generation” of modernists, influenced by the likes of Belluschi and Yeon, but also marching to their own drummer. The home he designed for he and his family carries the interest in wood and a relationship to the
Photography by Saul Zaik
Not so much a house as a series of rooms connected by covered walkways, Zaik’s home seems to combine elements of Belluschi’s International Style-meets-Northwest with a bit of Yeon’s “sequence of revelations.”
Photography by Saul Zaik
The home Portland native David Rockwood designed for his parents in the 1980s is one of the more widely celebrated works of Portland residential architecture of the last 30 years. Published in European and Japanese journals, it is also featured in res
Photography by Richard Strode
