They Built Their Home Around a Grove of Ancient Stumps in the Washington Woods

Working closely with the contours of the site, Signal Architecture + Research designs a couple’s dream home to suit the needs of the surrounding forest—boulders and all.
Photos by

Four summers ago, a group of a dozen or so people gathered for dinner in a forest in North Bend, Washington. Held on a site near Mount Si and Mount Teneriffe, about 30 miles southeast of Seattle, the event was a modern-day "topping-out" celebration (complete with an Ethan Stowell–cooked meal) for Joan and Ken Vaughn, whose house had recently received its final lumber board.

Join Dwell+ to Continue

Subscribe to Dwell+ to get everything you already love about Dwell, plus exclusive home tours, video features, how-to guides, access to the Dwell archive, and more. You can cancel at any time.

Try Dwell+ for FREE

Already a Dwell+ subscriber? Sign In

Rachel Gallaher
Rachel Gallaher is one of the design industry’s most prolific writers, contributing regularly to dozens of titles, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Robb Report, Dwell, Architectural Digest, Azure, Luxe, and...