Conversation with Robert Rummer
These were the Beatniks of housing. They turned their backs to society – and streets and neighbors – to focus on individual backyard havens. Walls of glass invited the outdoors in. Ceilings soared. Massive wood beams were left exposed. During the late 1950s through the early 1970s Robert Rummer built almost 1,000 such houses in the Portland metro area. At the time, many people were skeptical of the modern look, preferring the traditional formality of Colonials or the cozy familiarity of Arts and Crafts.
Managing Editor Vivian McInerny reminisces about living on a Portland houseboat in the late 70’s.
Hot trends, cool stuff, big ideas, little wonders.
What’s fire-engine red, has wheels and is utterly fantasy inducing? No, not a sleek Euro sports car but the Don Vardo, a 7-by-10-foot mobile structure with French doors, a tiny cedar deck, radiant-heat cork floors and hemlock walls.
Like many people living in Craftsman homes, bicycle commuters Marti Frank and Lev Tsypin discovered what they gained in architectural charm they lost in convenient bike storage. “We have no driveway or garage,” says Tsypin of their Southeast Portland home. “We just had a makeshift, awkward bike area in the back.”
Aurora Glass near Eugene produces home products made entirely of recycled window glass.
A 1920s farmhouse in Hood River Valley is recycled into a new home that blends naturally into its surroundings.
