A Touch Of France -- This Mount Vernon House Bridges Traditional And Modernistic Design

IN ITS HEYDAY, MOUNT VERNON was known far and wide for its dairies, which produced great quantities of milk and milk products. In more recent years, its produce has been food for the eye - tulips shipped around the world and attracting thousands of admirers for several weeks in late spring. But there's more to Mount Vernon than milk and tulips.

Turn right instead of left off the interstate, head up the hill, and a surprising residential neighborhood of period homes opens to view, reflecting the growth and prosperity of this small Skagit Valley city. Here doctors, lawyers and business leaders commissioned architect-designed homes, and with few architects in town in the 1920s and 1930s, it made sense to find them in Seattle.

Robin Welts, a Mount Vernon attorney, found Bjarne Moe, his designer for a handsome French-styled, four-bedroom home on 2 1/2 wooded acres with panoramic views.

Moe, born in Norway, had been brought to America at age 4 and lived most of his life in the Northwest. He attended the architecture program at the University of Washington for three years and worked for Seattle architect R.C. Reamer from 1928 to 1931, when the firm was engaged in the addition to the Olympic Hotel and designing the Great Northern Railway headquarters and the 1411 Fourth Avenue Building.

In the same period, Moe designed apartment buildings for developer Fred Anhalt and auditorium seating for the B.F. Shearer Co. From 1932 on, he designed movie theaters throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana and northern Oregon, among them the Ridgmont in North Seattle and the Bel-Vue at Bellevue Square.

The Mount Vernon residence seemed a natural evolution of Moe's training. From the Anhalt work, he developed an appreciation for overfired clinker brick as a facade material whose rough-cut edges and uneven laying said "handmade." He also received an exposure to French country houses in Anhalt's picture-book reference library.

In 1931 Reamer designed a French Norman residence in Broadmoor that bridged traditional French architecture with modernistic design.

Moe's modified French country house of 1934 in Mount Vernon does that, too, with shallow, arched dormers extending from a mansard roof, simplified windows and doors, and wrought-iron pillars outside. Inside, he applied convex fluted moldings and simplified pediment treatments that were "moderne."

John and Gretchen Pickett, Northwesterners who grew up in Redmond and lived in Sedro-Woolley and La Conner, happened on the house by accident. It hadn't been advertised for sale, and no one had lived in it for more than a year. Still in the Welts family, it was fully furnished, but in bad disrepair.

That changed as soon as the Picketts purchased it. They refinished floors, painted, removed wallpapers and repapered. The living room captured the character of the "moderne" with a curved window wall facing into woodland, convex fluted fireplace surrounds, and pilasters trimming windows and doors.

The couple began to enjoy the spacious rooms, the generous French doors from the living room, dining room and den that provided access to the back patio.

The patio was a small, cramped area defined by a concrete-block wall and corrugated fiberglass. Moe's architectural rendering of a lovely formal garden never materialized, and the lawn dropped precipitously from there to the rest of the property.

In 1992 the Picketts decided to regrade the back yard for a swimming pool as a first step toward a remodel in 1993 that added 1,800 square feet for a study, bedrooms and bath for the children, an expanded kitchen and a den/family room. Fred Holmgren was the builder and carpenter. Don Summers was the interior designer.

The couple found the space for these additions by remodeling the garage and enclosing a covered and trellised breezeway connected to it. A new garage east of the old garage incorporates the dentil brick molding, clinker brick and high-pitched roofs that characterize the house.

So does the addition, which carries the original vocabulary of shallow arched dormers, roof pitches and facade materials. While the new rooms assert their own modernity, architect Tom Theisen repeated significant details throughout.

The first floor of the garage has been turned into a den that includes a changing room and shower on either side of French doors leading to the pool. At the opposite side of the room, a concave curved wall extends out from the original garage-door location to accommodate an upstairs study for the children.

For Gretchen Pickett, the house and Mount Vernon have been very good moves. "We have the best of everything. We're two minutes to work downtown, and the kids hang out here. They want to stay here."

------------------------------------------------------------------ Lawrence Kreisman is author of six publications on regional architecture and historic preservation. Gary Settle is Pacific's staff photographer. ------------------------------------------------------------------

--------- HOME TOUR ---------

THE PICKETT RESIDENCE IS ONE of seven sites open to view on the 1996 Art and Architecture Tour of Homes sponsored by the newly reopened Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7 and 8. In addition to the Pickett home, the featured residence, the tour includes two historic commercial buildings in downtown Mount Vernon, a 1907 Colonial Revival mansion (now a bed and breakfast), a 1922 Dutch Colonial, an early 1930s English cottage, and a 1976 contemporary. Proceeds go to the operations and programs of the museum, 121 S. First St. in La Conner.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance at the museum store, at Karl's Paints in Mount Vernon (1515 Freeway Dr.) and Anacortes (1820 Commercial), and at the offices of the Skagit Valley Herald (1000 E. College Way, Mount Vernon). They will be available at the museum and at featured homes on the days of the tour. For further information, contact MoNA (360) 466-4446.