Hilary and Jimmy Severson live on a picturesque country road near the hamlet of Stafford, an unincorporated community 15 miles south of Portland. When Hilary first drove down it eight years ago, she was so enamored that she returned with Jimmy the following weekend. A patchwork of fields and fences runs along its length, with clumps of trees shielding setback houses. While those homes skew from faux Tuscan villas to mongrel McMansions, the road has a classic bucolic charm the couple never forgot.

Fast forward to 2017, when they were seeking to upgrade to a larger house for their growing family and Hilary got a call from their realtor to go see a rare available home there. Despite knowing the area, she nearly missed the driveway. The small, run-down ’70s-built structure sat on three acres choked with briar bushes and rotting evergreens, although several mature maples and ornamental cherry trees protruded from the snarl.

For this particular house, all that greenery had served as camouflage. “It was a grow house before grow houses were legal,” says Jimmy. (A 2015 Oregon law permits adults to cultivate four marijuana plants at home.) “There was a burnt-out house and all these gross old trees and garbage everywhere,” remembers Hilary of the uninhabited property. “I was like, ‘Yes, I want it.’”

Until then, their search had proved frustrating, but Hilary could picture their four boys, who now range in age from 3 to 11, climbing those maples. And with a house of their own making on the lot, they’d have plenty of room for everyone.

Jimmy and Hilary spent 18 months on design, partnering with Hilary’s younger brother, Portland architect Solomon Berg. Their process was informal—texting and emailing ideas and sketches back and forth. With every iteration, Berg pared further back, in keeping with the couple’s desire for an unfussy, streamlined home with little ornamentation.

“It’s a human-scaled house. It’s not intimidating or fussy. It feels good.”
—Solomon Berg, architect

“I wanted to distill it to the essentials of what it needed to be. I think there’s a beauty in that,” says Berg. Local builder Patrick Huske of Ironwood Homes rounded out the team. Together they completed the 3,890-square-foot home under budget and in just 10 months.

Today, the driveway climbs to their new house, sited on the crest of a knoll, its simple gable shape and gray-washed color emitting a hushed reserve in contrast to the flourish of some of the neighboring homes. “When you drive up, it doesn’t have a huge presence, but that was intentional,” says Berg, noting that the house settles into the site better that way. Behind the house, fields fan out to the horizon.

The house comprises three wings and is mostly one level, with the children’s and parents’ bedroom suites flanking the communal spaces. Flat-roofed glass “connector boxes” mark transition points, such as the main entrance. There, a glass wall overlooks the road, establishing a quiet pause before the animation of family life appears, barefoot boys scampering from bedrooms to the yard to their playroom above the garage.

Inside, the house opens up in sequential moments. A soaring black brick fireplace breaks up the open plan, while the kitchen’s sink and stove are hidden from diners’ view behind a partial wall. The simple material palette of concrete, glass, and white oak is a quiet counterpart to the landscape. Oversize windows and doors, their top rails nine feet high, capture the pastoral views from multiple angles and rooms—here a corner of the barn roofline next door, there a maple tree’s leaves fluttering in the wind.

This summer, the couple slept with the 12-foot glass door in their bedroom open wide to the yard, while the boys camped out in the grass under the stars. The kids, up as early as 7 o’clock, are able to ride on the mountain bike course Jimmy built and roam free without disturbing their parents. Says Jimmy with a smile: “I think our family has gone a bit feral."

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Ment Architecture / @mentarchitecture

Construction: Ironwood Homes

Engineering: Hayden Engineers

Landscape Design: Dennis’ 7 Dees

Cabinetry: Walters Construction

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