Midcentury modern architect William Fletcher’s first Portland house is for sale for the first time
Prior to architect William Fletcher was celebrated as a single of Portland’s most influential midcentury modern day designers, he and his then spouse, Joyce, moved into Fletcher’s initially generation: A groundbreaking hunting, practically transparent dwelling crafted in 1954 on two forested acres around the Willamette River.
Immediately after 68 a long time, the loved ones home is for sale for the first time: 10803 S. Riverside Drive in Riverdale, among Portland and Lake Oswego, was shown on April 25 at $1,250,000 by Lance George Marrs of Portland Modern-day True Estate.
Marrs rightfully refers to the home as an architectural gem.
Fletcher spouse and children users say Joyce, a photographer and painter, picked the locale and William (“Bill”) intended the open up flooring program with ground-to-ceiling home windows that dissolve the boundaries amongst within and out.
Shortly, the avant-garde two-story with cork flooring and planked ceilings was showcased in The Oregonian and countrywide publications as nicely as the 1959 e-book, “The Next Treasury of Modern Properties.”
“Midcentury modern-day fanatics will be attracted to this dwelling and acreage,” states Marrs, which he adds is “on a quick checklist of attributes genuinely coveted in the Northwest modernism made by William Fletcher.”
Invoice Fletcher, a second-technology Oregonian motivated by modernist trailblazer, German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the spare Global Model motion, intended a constrained number of residences.
But architectural authorities say his perform is timeless due to its swish geometric varieties, extremely livable layouts and carefully positioned home windows and skylights that attract in natural gentle.
Right here, clerestory windows increase to the sense of lightness, as if factors are floating. The home with 2,298 square ft of dwelling room also has a extensive, concrete fireplace fireplace in the residing room and 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms.
With a diploma from the College of Oregon’s Faculty of Architecture, Fletcher initial set up store in the basement of his dwelling in 1955.
A year later on, he shared a downtown studio at Southwest 14th Avenue and Columbia Avenue with architects Donald Blair and Saul Zaik as properly as other users of the fabled “14th Road Gang” of outliers coming up with deliberately pared-down properties in the Pacific Northwest.
In the 1960s, Fletcher partnered with architect Curt Finch, and a ten years later, with Dale Farr and Hal Ayotte at a Portland-based mostly business now known as FFA Architecture and Interiors, Inc., which carries on to design and style sustainable residential and professional projects.
Early industrial projects incorporate Black Butte Ranch household vacation resort around Sisters and Rex Hill winery in Newberg, where by Fletcher famously dedicated a place for a steel sculpture by Lee Kelly.
Aidy Bryant as “Annie Easton” (centre) talks to Lolly Adefope (“Fran”) and Luka Jones (“Ryan”) inside of Portland’s 1959 Wedgwood House of Tomorrow in a scene in “Shrill.” Hulu
The 1959 Wedgwood Property of Tomorrow that Fletcher conceived with Blair in Northeast Portland’s Hazelwood community was employed as a film location for “Shrill,” a comedy sequence starring Aidy Bryant and streaming on Hulu.
The experimental model residence, with an exceptionally lightweight folded-plate roof, prefabricated panels and suspended fireplace, gained a merit award from the American Institute of Architects for the duration of the halcyon days of midcentury architecture.
The household, often misspelled “Wedgewood,” was detailed for sale at $639,000 on Jan. 12, 2021, and offered a thirty day period later for $77,000 in excess of the inquiring cost.
In 2017, the statewide historic preservation organization Restore Oregon focused its annual Mid-Century Modern Tour to Fletcher’s appealing, floor-breaking constructions.
Restore Oregon’s initial reserve, “Oregon Produced, A Tour of Regional Mid-Century Modern-day Architecture” ($35 at restoreoregon.org), incorporates a chapter on Fletcher’s talent at balancing the attract of clear walls with the need to have for privateness.
Bill, whose pals said was a in-depth-oriented, jazz drumming rebel, died in 1998. Joyce, a graduate of Cornell College in New York who traveled in the course of her life to recognize planet cultures, died in January 2022.
— Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072
[email protected] | @janeteastman
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