Home On The Range -- Stuart Anderson's Home Nestles Atop A Buttle Like A Saddle On A Horse

WITH HIS RUGGED LOOKS AND resonant voice, Stuart Anderson has come to symbolize the quintessential cattle rancher for a generation of diners and TV viewers.

Although he's hung up his Stetson as owner and spokesman for the Black Angus restaurant chain (Marriott bought the business six years ago), Anderson still makes his home on the range. He and his wife Helen live on a 200-acre ranch in Thorp, a sleepy town nestled on the outskirts of Ellensburg, 100 miles east of Seattle.

Nine years ago, the couple moved from the old homestead into a 4,800-square-foot house perched atop a butte overlooking the ranch and the surrounding Kittitas Valley. Designed by Mercer Island architect David Gee, who is married to Stuart's eldest daughter, Christopher, the house commands a sweeping view of golden foothills, patchwork farmland and the pale-blue silhouette of the Manastash ridge. The Yakima River snakes through the valley below.

Gee designed the house to capitalize on the scenery while fitting into the setting. The gently sloped roof echoes the grade of the surrounding hillside, while the broad cornice around its edge helps make the one-story house nestle even closer to the ground.

The architect used indigenous materials wherever possible. The front steps and terrace are lined with river-rock walls built from stones collected around the ranch. The rock walls are repeated on the chimney inside, and behind two woodstoves.

Melding the house into the setting was also a practical decision, given the gales that pummel the hill from the north. "It blows really hard here," Gee says. "We needed to respond to the views, but also turn our backs so we were in the lee side of the wind."

Gee tucked the rear of the house into a tall berm that deflects air currents over the roof. (The berm also buries part of the garage so it's not so conspicuous.) Windscreens fabricated from black netting provide additional protection, as does the glass wall lining one side of the patio.

Wall finishes help balance the formal aspects of the home's design with the informal nature of ranch life. The owners had admired the way the French mixed straw into the plaster walls of their country homes, and asked Gee to duplicate the effect on the ranch.

Stuart selected the straw himself, choosing bales that were clean, bright and dry. After the foundation coat of plaster stucco was applied, the surface was strewn with random strands of straw, then slathered with a final coat of plaster stucco, tinted a warm beige. This procedure was repeated inside and out.

The treatment helped soften the home's contemporary lines and provide a richly textured foil to the owners' collection of antique and heirloom furnishings. Gee paired the straw-flecked walls with vaulted ceilings covered with clear pine decking. The floors are paved with ruddy Saltillo tiles, which absorb the sun's rays and radiate warmth at night.

The architect wrapped a soffit around the perimeter of the living room to make the vaulted ceiling feel less daunting, and placed a wood grid over the kitchen for a similar effect. The island features knife slots on top and a spice rack built into the end. The pot rack hanging above the island was crafted from copper plumbing pipe welded into the shape of the Black Angus logo.

Taking a cue from the pot rack, the Andersons covered the countertops with sheets of gleaming copper. "You can set hot things on them. They take abuse tremendously," says Helen. "The cleaning lady just polishes them up and they shine like a copper pan."

The home's furnishings are eclectic, ranging from contemporary leather seating to porcelain inherited from Stuart's mother. While he was still involved with Black Angus, Stuart took considerable interest in the decor of his restaurants, and often scouted auction houses for antique wall panels and other embellishments. The wood hat rack gracing the entry hall was acquired at one such auction, as was the art-nouveau leaded-glass panel hanging above the kitchen pass-through. A cashier's booth from the Liverpool train station was fashioned into a headboard in the master bedroom. And the antique copper tub in the adjoining bathroom originally came from an English hotel.

Despite his cattleman image, Stuart has always been a businessman at heart. The son of a physician, he grew up in Seattle's exclusive Broadmoor neighborhood and studied business at Dartmouth before founding the Black Angus chain in 1964. He bought the ranch two years later, gradually expanding it until it included 2,800 acres.

Although Anderson has sold off most of the land, he can still admire his former holdings from the terrace. There, a small swimming pool sits poised at the edge of asteep precipice. The pool's far wall is lower than the others, allowing water to cascade over the lip into a trough below. Since the surface of the water obscures the lip, the pool appears to end in mid-air - as if an invisible glass shield were holding back the water.

Seattle writer Fred Albert reports regularly on home design for Pacific. Greg Gilbert is a Seattle Times photographer.