Rest A Spell -- This Ellensburg Weekend Home Is A Real Escape

AS YOU APPROACH Don Smith and Jane Uhlir's Ellensburg vacation home, fields of dusty sagebrush give way to aspen groves. After you round a bend in the driveway, the home's silver metal roof glistens through the trees. Moments later the rest of the house appears, its natural board-and-batten siding blending with the rugged mountain setting.

Smith and Uhlir built the house two years ago, after discovering the property through an ad in the paper. Additions swelled their original 75-acre parcel to 225 acres, which they named Sweetwater Ranch, after their son's heavy-metal band.

The Seattle physicians visit the property nearly every weekend, trading their white lab coats for worn blue jeans and cowboy boots. When they're not building a new corral or tending to the vegetable garden, the pair can be found hiking, fishing, cross-country skiing or enjoying long, leisurely dinners with friends from the city.

The house, which received an honor award last fall from the Seattle Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, grew out of a common vision the husband and wife shared. "We wanted a house that was representative of the area, and looked like it belonged here," says Uhlir.

At the same time, the couple admired the broad verandas and squat, square forms of rural Australian houses and figured the form would fit Eastern Washington's arid climate.

They took their ideas to Seattle architect Rex Hohlbein, who combined the sheltering eaves and low profile of the Australian houses with forms and materials common to Ellensburg's indigenous architecture. The corrugated metal roof, for instance, was inspired by surrounding barns and ranch houses. Forming a steep gable in the center, the roof eases into a broad, gradual incline that surrounds the gable like a skirt. A deep, U-shaped porch wraps around a bay on one end, while a shallow porch shelters the entry door in front.

Actually, the house really has no front or back. Steps surround the foundation on all sides, providing access to the interior from any angle. French doors grace every ground-floor room, easing the flow of traffic onto the shady, west-facing porch. In summertime the doors are seldom shut, letting in the cooling prairie breezes.

With six children ranging in age from 7 to 30, Smith and Uhlir wanted a home that could accommodate both large gatherings and intimate weekends. Hohlbein designed the 2,500-square-foot structure around a spacious central room crowned with an 11-foot ceiling. One end of the space contains the living room, with seating oriented around a woodstove and the view of Mount Rainier. The opposite end is given over to the kitchen, which consists of a single long counter with an island opposite it. A low beam crossing overhead helps divide the space from the adjoining dining area without obstructing the flow of traffic.

"Often times at a summer house you're feeding a lot more people," Uhlir says. "I like a lot of help in the kitchen, and with this design, you can have tons of people cooking."

Operable transoms at either end of the room encourage cross ventilation - a definite advantage in a climate where the temperature often exceeds 100 degrees.

Having spent a fair share of time at other vacation homes, Smith and Uhlir knew that togetherness can have its limits, especially when individuals have different sleeping schedules. So Hohlbein balanced the communal living areas with separate bedrooms, placing the master suite on one side of the main floor and guest quarters on the other. The smaller second floor has a pair of guest rooms with a tiny den in between. When the bedrooms aren't in use, they can be closed off to conserve heat.

Because the owners didn't want to spend their weekends cleaning, the house was designed for easy maintenance. Instead of a formal entry hall, the front door opens directly into a mud room equipped with a washer and dryer, so dirty clothes can be shed the minute they enter the house.

The central room features fir floors and cedar paneling treated with a white stain. The ceiling is covered with fir car decking, which doubles as the floor for the rooms above. "The wood can take abuse," Hohlbein says. "If these floors get marked up or there's a ding in the wall, after 10 years it'll look like it's grown with the people who lived here."

The long kitchen counter is stainless steel, so the owners can cut on it or put down hot pots without worrying. The island opposite it was fabricated from a trio of stainless-steel lab cabinets that once belonged to Cabrini Hospital. The fir countertop, actually part of an old bowling alley, was picked up at an architectural salvage shop for $200.

The walls are lighted with galvanized marine-style fixtures. Bathrooms are decorated with old-fashioned beadboard paneling and hexagonal-tile floors, and equipped with vintage claw-foot tubs and pedestal sinks. "Whenever the ideas started getting complicated, we would ask ourselves, `What would a farmer do?' " Hohlbein says.

The unpretentious furnishings include a pair of sofas covered in a durable tweed and two ersatz Morris chairs upholstered in a Southwest-style print. Window seats provide additional seating, and double as beds when house guests outnumber mattresses.

The mahogany-and-walnut dining table was built by a friend of the owners. Extra leaves can be placed atop slide-out drawers at either end, expanding the table to seat 16 - although Uhlir keeps 36 place settings in the old oak rectory cupboard just in case.

Built at a cost of approximately $210,000, the house has proved to be a blissful diversion for Smith and Uhlir, and a constant source of discovery for the owners' youngest children. However, no family member has benefited more than 28-year-old son Mike. A carpenter by trade, he moved up from California in April 1991 to supervise the home's construction, and promptly fell in love with a young woman attending Central Washington University. Four months later, the two were married on the home's porch in front of 200 well-wishers. Unbeknownst to the crowd, the family was still hanging doors and affixing hardware right up to the service.

"It was pretty frantic," admits Uhlir. "But as soon as the people started arriving, it didn't matter any more. It was really a lovely wedding."

Mike liked the area so much, he decided to put down roots there. He started a company called (what else?) Sweetwater Construction, and is in the process of building his own house - right around the corner from his parents.

Seattle writer Fred Albert reports regularly on home design for Pacific and other regional magazines. Steve Ringman is a Seattle Times news artist.