Nashville couple find their way back to Oregon — and into a custom home — with Renaissance Homes.
Photography by Jason E. Kaplan
Kim and Blane Clark have done a lot together in nearly 16 years of marriage.
They met outside Nashville, Tennessee, when Kim was working as a nurse and Blane was in IT. They married, raised a blended family with three children and bought several homes along the way, each one chosen with their family’s needs in mind.
One thing they had never done together, though? Build a brand-new, custom home.
Blane was born in Oregon and still had family here, so the couple made the trip west once or twice a year. As their youngest child prepared to leave for college, the possibility of moving to Oregon — and being closer to Blane’s family — began to feel less like a someday idea and more like the next chapter.
“When our last kid was getting ready to go to college, it was kind of like, ‘Okay, now we could move and be closer to Blane’s family,’” Kim Clark says. “And when we started thinking about it, we said, ‘We’ve never built a house together, so that would be fun.’ I’m not sure that other people have that feeling, but we were excited about it.”
With the help of Renaissance Homes, they made it happen.
The couple packed up their lives — including their two dogs — and headed west to their newly completed custom home in Lake Oswego.
“It was just really exciting,” Clark says. “It wasn’t even like it was a move. It just felt like we were coming home.”
A good fit
Founded in 1984 by Randy Sebastian, Renaissance Homes has built a reputation over more than four decades as one of the region’s leading homebuilders. In recent years, the company has expanded its expertise into custom homes, offering clients a streamlined building process while maintaining its emphasis on quality and craftsmanship.
The Clarks first discovered Renaissance several years ago, when they began exploring the possibility of moving to Oregon. They considered buying an existing home, but after finding Renaissance online, they became intrigued by the company’s approach to custom building.
“We had already seen what Renaissance could do online,” Clark says. “Their website is really helpful because you can see the way they work, the options you have, who their people are. And the structure in which they work and manage their projects was really appealing to us.”
That last part was particularly important. Building a home from across the country would require a team the Clarks could trust to manage the details without requiring them to be physically present for every decision.
“We needed somebody who could just take what we wanted and go for it, as opposed to having to manage so much, because we knew we just couldn’t do that, especially from a long distance,” Clark says.
The couple first connected with Amanda Andruss, principal broker and custom home sales manager for Renaissance. She showed them several Renaissance homes for sale and also introduced them to the possibility of building a custom home.
“Amanda was just such a good fit,” Clark says. “She’s such a good representative for the company. After talking with her, we just said, ‘Let’s do this.’”
Confidence builder
Working with Renaissance, the Clarks found a parcel they loved in Lake Oswego’s Waluga neighborhood. They also found a starting point for their home among the plans available through Renaissance’s website.
Renaissance offers homeowners flexibility in how they approach their design. They can start with one of Renaissance’s existing plans, developed around considerations such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, lot size and shape, number of levels and placement of the primary suite, and then personalize it to fit their needs. Or, for a more fully customized home, they can work directly with Renaissance’s licensed architect to develop a design from the ground up.
The company’s exterior style guide offers distinct looks, from farmhouse and vintage to modern colonial and coastal, all of which can be customized.
The Clarks chose a modern farmhouse design as their starting point, then made it their own. They added a bedroom upstairs and reconfigured several spaces on the main level, including the office, pantry and laundry room.
Their wish list centered on a home that would work as well for everyday life as it would for entertaining. They wanted primarily main-level living, an open kitchen and living area large enough for family gatherings, an outdoor living space, and a spacious yard for Kim’s vegetable garden and their two dogs.
Building a custom home from across the country might sound daunting, but Clark says Renaissance’s process made the experience remarkably manageable.
“They have such a nicely structured process,” she says. “We always knew exactly where we were in the process and what was needed and what was coming up next.”
Renaissance also adapted the process to the couple’s distance, helping them determine which decisions could be handled remotely and which were worth making in person.
“They were very flexible with the fact that we were out of town, and they were helpful in us deciding what could be done over Zoom or what we should be in-person for,” Clark says.
For the Clarks, that flexibility provided something even more valuable: confidence.
“One of the things for us was just having that confidence that, even though we weren’t going to be there every single day, they were going to follow through,” Clark says.
That confidence extended through the entire process, including the many details that turn a house into a home. Clark worked with Renaissance’s in-house design team to select surfaces, fixtures, appliances and other finishes.
“One of the things that was really wonderful about working with Renaissance was that they have really strong relationships with their vendors,” she says. “They were all incredibly helpful in helping us make our decisions.”
Welcome home
From the beginning, August 2025 was the target completion date for the Clarks’ home.
And, just as planned, it was ready.
The couple moved in that August and, just four months later, hosted their first Christmas in the new house — with 55 family members and friends.
“Seeing it all put together really felt like it was home already,” Clark says.
Part of that feeling came from Blane’s history with Oregon and the years the couple had spent visiting family here. But the home also felt familiar because of how personally involved they had been in creating it.
“We were so intimately involved with designing the house and the whole process,” Clark says. “I don’t know how else to describe it. It just felt like it was home.”
After years of building a life together in Tennessee, the Clarks had finally built something new in Oregon.
In the end, though, it didn’t feel like starting over.
It felt like coming home.
