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By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone

With so many unique and storied residential neighborhoods, Seattle and its surrounding communities are jam-packed with classic single-family houses, representing over a century of West Coast design trends.

Given the vast inventory of timeless homes, it’s tempting to wonder if there is a single, unifying “Seattle style,” an element or two that brings it all together. To find out, let’s take a brief tour of the classics to see what’s in their shared DNA.

First Homes

As more non-native Americans arrived from the East to work in the lumber and shipbuilding industries, they built shacks, cabins, and shanties— threadbare structures fit mostly for survival—using many of the same local materials found in longhouses. After the Klondike Gold Rush started in 1896, growth and prosperity brought more permanent housing and a burgeoning homebuilding industry.

The classical age of the Seattle home had begun.

Classic Seattle Homes

1900 to 1940

At the dawn of the twentieth century, following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, thousands of homes sprung up overnight. The most ostentatious was Millionaire’s Row on Capitol Hill, a fantasia of blinged-out palaces for the newly minted rich. But classic homes with just as much character were generously distributed throughout the city.

Cape Cod

An understated classic in our residential fabric, the quite modest, very New England Cape Cod eschews ornamental details for simple low-and-wide construction of one or two floors, a mighty centerpiece chimney, and steep gabled roofs. Throw in some shingles for extra maritime flavor.

From Depression to War

1930 to 1945

1929 saw the end of the boom years as the stock market crash sunk much of the world into the Great Depression. History hit the stop button on Seattle’s classic era as massive shanty towns called Hoovervilles popped up overnight.

Building resumed with the introduction of federally-subsidized affordable housing developments and later wartime construction to accommodate Boeing employees and other workers during World War II. This was not an era of beauty but function first and foremost, with thousands of lookalike homes mass-produced across the region.

Homes of the Future

1946 to 1970

After the privation of the Great Depression and War years, housing started blasting off in leafy suburban-style tracts as post-war Americans started careers and kicked off the baby boom. The dawn of the Jet Age had begun in Jet City, and Modern architecture, art, and design were in full swing.

Boeing-era prosperity meant people were buying a lot of automobile-friendly singlefamily homes promising all the latest doohickeys and amenities. These were the “homes of the future,” filled with ample space, modern appliances, and other conveniences that seemed beamed in from the future.

Beyond Modern

1970 to 1990

The 1980s saw the intensification of masterplanned housing and suburban tracts with homes of hitherto unseen spaciousness. While a lot of homes in this era generically mimicked what came before, there was a noticeable push among some homebuilders for wildly eclectic and bare-bones minimalism.

The Postmodern threw out the spartan Modern approach for something more idiosyncratic, eclectic, often wildly sculptural and vibrantly colorful. While most notable Postmodern designs can be found in public and commercial spaces, any house that combines disparate elements in a playful or “deconstructed” way can be called Postmodern-influenced.

Near Contemporary

1990 to 2000

Since the 1990s, density has been the name of the game in those parts of Seattle not zoned for single-family homes. The 1990 Growth Management Act hemmed in development within urban growth boundaries, incentivizing denser single-family and multifamily housing closer to city centers. Master-planned communities continued to grow in suburbs falling inside the boundary.

While a lot of homebuilding projects became large-scale, regimented, or focused on infill, Seattleites had never had so many singlefamily options fit for every lifestyle.

Seattle Style?

Even leaving out several styles (Gothic Revival, anyone?), this is a lot. Given the aesthetic diversity and the fact that most of these movements originated elsewhere, is there really such a thing as Seattle style?

Short answer: Yes. But it’s not defined by any one feature. It’s more of a guiding principle that drives the way regional variations like the Seattle Bungalow are designed. Most were built to complement rather than overpower their surroundings—the climate, biomes, and beauty of the Puget Sound region. As such, they share key elements, including some going all the way back to Salish longhouses.

David Miller, University of Washington professor and award-winning AIA Fellow, has identified a few: Simple structures on raised foundations, large windows to drink in rare sunny days, exposed posts and beams that show off local materials, and open layouts unifying the space. They eschew hard-and-fast boundaries between interior and outdoor space, keeping occupants dry with big patios and sheltering eaves.

When you look at old Seattle homes, fully restored or radically remodeled, they often feel right because most were designed with this place in mind. Whether single-family, “missing middle,” or multifamily, the homes of today that will survive are those elegantly adapted to their surrounding nature and cityscape. These are the homes that embody the Seattle style.

Houseboats

During the apartment boom of the 1950s, houseboats very nearly went extinct before being promoted and ultimately codified by the city in the latter decades of the century— eventually losing their low-rent reputation and achieving a more glamorous status as part of Seattle’s waterfront heritage. If you look at a few of the floating palaces of today, it can be hard to imagine houseboats’ humble history.

Photo Credits

First Homes: Scott D. Sullivan
Seattle Box: Joe Mabel
Craftsman Bungalow: Courtesy Carlisle Classic Homes
WWII-Era Cottage: Courtesy Palmer Residential
Northwest Regional: Jeff Hobson for Lochwood-Lozier Custom Homes
Mid-Century Modern: Courtesy Carlisle Classic Homes
Minimalist: Courtesy Nip Tuck Remodeling

It feels different here. We're at the office, talking shop. Moving past the acoustic guitar and AC/DC record (yes, record), you get a sense that these guys and gals are doing something cool and modern—so modern, in fact, that the industry has yet to catch up. It makes sense that there's a guitar in the office because this team strums to the tune of their own chords, setting new standards in homebuilding and daring anyone to do the same. Welcome to Green Canopy Homes.

BEATRICE (THEY NAME THEIR HOMES)

We're on the roof of "Beatrice" now, overlooking Lake Washington and Bellevue on one side, with a clear shot of the Smith Tower in Seattle on the other. But enough about the view—we're standing on top of building science. The guts of this home will soon be filled with enough gadgetry to wow even the most ardent tech geek, delivering cleaner air, more efficient heating, and an overall sense of innovative superiority.

Driven by the Built Green® checklists, along with meticulous Quality Control Inspection Checklists (QCIC) of their own, every Green Canopy job site is synchronized via iPads that deliver real-time project management tracking and communication. This process ensures that critical updates are made and that any mistakes don't happen twice. It's all about getting better here, from process to parts. Better homes lead to a better brand, which in turn provides validation for that tree logo on the front of each Green Canopy-certified home.

"That tree logo," by the way, is there for much more than feng shui. Turning residential homebuilding innovation into an industry strength is made possible by Value, Innovation, Beauty, and Efficiency, or VIBE, the way Green Canopy sees it. Their brand is secured—not grounded—by these four "roots," seen literally on the face of each home, welcoming owners and guests into the future of home living. And if a home doesn't meet the rigorous checklists, then it doesn't receive the logo. In other words, this brand delivers.

THE GENESIS OF BETTER BUILDING

Let's take a step back to a sleep-deprived evening in 2008. Owners Aaron Fairchild and Sam Lai had both recently welcomed their newborns, and through their giddiness came the idea for Green Canopy Homes. After trademarking their moniker, they went to work on answering a simple question: Are we making a difference? Heady question, but these guys wouldn't have it any other way. They're looking to create history.

Of course, history is defined by change and nobody knows that better than this crew. They don't throw history out, however; in fact, they embrace it in all its past beauty. Case in point; each project they take on comes with the name of an iconic and typically historical female figure. "Beatrice" is named after Beatrice Simms, founder of Seattle's chapter of Colored Women's Clubs. Each project's story continues long after the team leaves, too, as Lai envisions his future homeowners living, laughing, and growing up healthier and happier inside their Green Canopy home.

After a familial chat with the project managers, in conversation outside of Beatrice, Lai finishes his point on home efficiency by comparing vehicle MPGs to home efficiency ratings. "Hopefully my kids will think about their home MPGs in the same way (as their vehicles')," he says, almost as an afterthought. "I guarantee you they will," quips Fairchild, never one to miss a beat. The attention to detail is strong.

Those who know Aaron Fairchild may know his father, who knew everyone. Aaron worked at his father's bank from 1995 to 2008, refining his financing skills and using his area residential homebuilding experience to put investors in a place where they could succeed and do so without sacrificing values. One day, at the height of the financial crisis, Fairchild decided it was time to enter the real estate industry. Why? Human reasoning can be a tricky thing to grasp, but a simple analogy sums up his thought process: this was his chance to build something beautiful from the crash.

CHANGE WAS COMING

Of course, cultivating said change means planting the right seeds in the right place. In this case, it means building sustainability in the cultural center of the Northwest, the greater Seattle and Portland areas. Green Canopy has sprouted roots in some of the most visible and dense areas of the Puget Sound region, spanning a diverse price range. Built Green-certified homes, like the ones Green Canopy specializes in, now make up 57 percent of all residential homes built in the soil-rich Seattle area. The roots of change are spreading—must be all the rain.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

At the Earth 6 property in Delridge, consisting of six detached single-family units, Fairchild fervently points out features, describing the living area as "Volkswagen luxury," inside the well-sealed envelope construction of the home. Green Canopy projects that go on the market in the low $400,000 range, such as the Earth 6 units, contain features not typically found at that price, and both Fairchild and Lai are quick to point out that they have had help in being able to spread the technology around. In steps the Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC), without whom, Green Canopy would not have been able to build the Earth 6 homes the way they wanted to. The WSHFC has helped builders like Green Canopy deliver deep energy efficiency to homes of all shapes and sizes, allowing lower-end residences to experience the joy of high efficiency ERVs, eco panels, and 230 percent more efficient heat pumps creating compressed energy with the intensity of "high schoolers on the dance floor" (another Fairchild classic), just like they do inside million-dollar homes. In WSHFC, Green Canopy sees a like-minded ally, not afraid to think outside the box and take measurable risks to achieve their mission. In their own words, green innovation within the building industry typically "hasn't been a strength," though Fairchild and friends are working on that.

It helps, too, that everyone on the team actually talks the talk when it comes to living green. Lai literally lives and breathes his product, living in a home he collaboratively designed and built himself. Hanging around the crew, especially Lai and Fairchild, it becomes immediately apparent that they really do mean it when they say they want to change the residential homebuilding industry—whether everyone likes it or not.

Cue the chatter of neighbors opposed to modern "monstrosities" being erected in their neck of the woods. Fairchild combats allied neighborhood fronts by simply sitting residents down and talking to them like the people they are, and giving them some say in what they have to look at every day. The loudest typically direct the majority at these gatherings, Fairchild points out, so Green Canopy gives individuals the option to go online and fill out a survey on features like exterior color and roofline shape, which will then influence the design direction Green Canopy takes. The home is then built according to plan—with slight alternations to paint and slope.

When asked whether or not this is enough to satisfy opposed residents, Fairchild counters the clash with reason: "We hold meetings for existing residents even before buying the property, to talk with them and see if building there (in a particular neighborhood) would be a good fit in the first place. If we think it is not right for us, we explain that another builder will eventually buy this land, and they probably won't engage the community at all."

Fairchild also discusses obstacles within the rebuilding process, explaining why he and Green Canopy have moved away from full-gut remodel projects: Persistent frustrations with an elongated plans review process of remodel permits have in the past delayed projects to the point where they "just aren't worth the trouble," he says. Ever the mender, however, he has recently taken a seat on the MBA board, where he hopes to further influence political decision-makers in our region. By engaging the public and manning the front lines of influential industry committees to squash issues before they become problematic, Green Canopy is winning before nail one is hammered.

Inevitably, when one tours a Green Canopy home, the question arises: "Can you do this for us?" With a few more of those questions answered, things won't feel so different anymore.

Cue the guitar.