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Drager Gould Architects in Tacoma and contractor Gary Howe of Gary Howe Construction.
By January 2002, the three generations had moved in together.
"You had this issue of the two families coming together, yet it was still Paula and Steve's house," Drager says. "First we talked about a separate cottage for the grams. But these people all get along really well, and it morphed into a single house."
They now live in a house that flows like
a conch shell, giving everyone privacy and togetherness.
"This has been a life-saver for our family," Paula says. Her mother, a widow, is still "a very full-of-life
person. But she has been seriously ill. She was just terrible in the hospital, and that's simply because she wanted
to come home."
Paula is associate dean of the School of Education
at Pacific Lutheran University, and Steve is an elementary-school principal. Paula understands the symmetry of
twinness, because she's one, too. But this is an education in family living neither anticipated.
"I was really scared when we first thought about it," Paula says. "But every day has been marvelous.
I wish more people would do this."
With a careful mix of inexpensive materials (vinyl windows and flooring, stock trim, asphalt-shingle roofing) and custom touches (the spiraling central wall and courtyard, Brazilian cherry great-room floor and fieldstone entry columns) they brought the 3,645-foot project on two acres in under the $500,000-or-so budget. That includes five bedrooms, 4½ baths, laundry and a three-car garage.
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| Architect Bret Drager designed the upper bank of windows along the curve in the great room to send the eye up toward the soaring ceiling inside, and the treetops and sky outside. |
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