Page 31 - International Architecture & Design Sotheby's Summer 2016

Orcas Island, Wash.
difference. We think a railing really changes your relationship to the outdoors.”
And the outdoors comes in, as nearly every surface is clad in wood. Cabinetry was crafted from Douglas fir by artisans on the island; cedar boards wrap the interior and exterior and provide a slightly rough, knotty character. “We really kept it local to the trees that are growing around them,” Herrin says, “and treated it to make it feel like beach wood that’s aged a bit.”
No doubt the cedar on the exterior will continue to change with the effects of wind and rain, and that’s something Herrin welcomes. “We do contemporary architecture,” he says, but there are times when roughness is apt. “It’s a retreat in the Islands,” Herrin says, so “having some character in the wood feels right to me.” The knots and the shifting hues of the wood will capture the passage of time, and the •house will look, year by year, as though it has always been there.
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