Ever since Jeff Albertson was a child, weekends at the beach have revolved around one particular stretch of western Washington State. After decades of vacations here, he decided it was time to establish a permanent place to stay. He and his spouse, Ben Vogt, lived for a while at a nearby inn and once toyed with the idea of buying it.

Then, in 2016, they found a parcel of land on a steep hillside overlooking the Pacific. The dramatic location and its proximity to the sea represented everything they loved about the region. Shielded from the southwest storms that often batter the coast, the site ultimately proved perfect for the rugged but comfortable cabin they built amid towering spruces and hemlocks.

Today is a typical Saturday—a few months before the pandemic—for Jeff, a product manager at Google, and Ben, a graphic designer, who have come nearly every weekend from Seattle with their toddler son, Camden, since construction was completed last year. Two visiting friends are preparing dinner in the kitchen as Camden, accompanied by the family’s chocolate Lab, Hawkeye, begs loudly to go down to the beach. “When we’re outside at home in Seattle, it’s typically for a dog walk, and it’s very purpose-driven,” says Ben. “Here, we go outside all the time. There’s no agenda.”

This particular swath of coastline is also what led the couple to Cutler Anderson Architects, a firm that has helped define the rustic yet refined Pacific Northwest modern aesthetic. “After we bought the property, we camped here for a while,” says Ben. “We wanted to live with it before we started doing anything.” Explains Jeff, “Our biggest concern was the site and building something that respected it.”

They found a sympathetic partner in firm principal James Cutler, who surveyed the six-acre lot himself and soon began making weekend treks here. A year later, he started design work on the 1,900-square-foot, two-story retreat, partly blanketed by a green roof that makes it blend in with the hillside from above.

“When you walk out to the beach and look at how the building sits on the site, it just absolutely fits,” says Cutler, who matched the angle of the cabin’s roof to the slope of the hill. “It’s about how we perceive buildings in the landscape: They’re either arrogant or they’re reverent.”

“The covered walkway was very important, because how the view is revealed can be either mundane or thrilling.”
—James Cutler, architect

As they make the short, steep walk down the bluff to the beach, with Camden and Hawkeye tromping through the sand, Jeff and Ben agree, calling the architect’s work a success. “The house has a humility to it,” says Jeff.

The couple also found the two-year process of working with Cutler illuminating. “Jim understood this place in ways we hadn’t quite anticipated—he got things out of the site we didn’t even know were going to be valuable, like this view,” says Jeff, now back inside the cabin and motioning past the woodburning fireplace to the large windows that frame a gulley of cedars and Douglas firs. “The weather will change several times throughout the day, so it’s fun to sit here and watch the storms roll through,” adds Ben.

From inside, the densely forested eastern view dramatically contrasts with the view to the west, which opens to the wide, windswept beach below. A floor-to-ceiling window wall in the principal bedroom was engineered with a custom steel system to withstand strong wind gusts from the ocean; it frames the vista Ben and Jeff enjoyed from their tent when they camped here.

This sense of contrast continues throughout the home, where rough-sawn cedar and Douglas fir are juxtaposed with smooth versions of the same woods in the free-flowing living/dining/kitchen area on the ground floor. “We like to show the various natures of wood,” says Cutler. The polished surfaces protect the wood where it is subject to wear and tear, while the rough finishes are higher up, showing off the material in its pure form. Most of the lumber came from one local mill.

“We bought the land not knowing what we could build or where. It’s off by itself and pretty isolated.”
—Jeff Albertson, resident

It’s these types of contrasts that Cutler, who was trained by Louis Kahn, sees as the most powerful tool in his arsenal after nearly four decades of practice. “It’s about finding ways to amplify our experience of the landscape so we experience it emotionally and not rationally,” he says. “These are the things that are most memorable and that drive our lives.”

At the same time, Jeff and Ben have come to appreciate the home’s subtle qualities: Storage is squirreled away behind concealed doors, and lighting is integrated above doorframes. To craft the lights, Cutler’s longtime builder, Lowell “Butch” Alford, put strips of LEDs between two pieces of opaque glass and then placed them over the doorframes, so they illuminate from above like clerestory windows.

It’s clear the cabin has become a treasured place for Jeff and Ben to continue the tradition of connecting with each other and Camden on this very special patch of shoreline. “There’s sand in the bathtub constantly,” Ben says. One gets the sense they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Cutler Anderson Architects / @cutler_anderson

General Contractor: Alford Homes Inc.

Structural Engineering: Madden & Baughman Engineering Inc.

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