Author Archives: Shreedhara Bajracharya

Fine Homebuilding Best Small Home 2013

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Best Small Home
Featuring: River Road Mini Home

FineHomebuilding awards a handful of homes their Houses Awards each year that illustrate exceptional residences that balance cost, efficiency, style. Their “award for the best small home this year goes to Nir Pearlson for this 800-sq.-ft secondary dwelling in Eugene, Ore. Set among existing gardens, the third-party certified green house relies on shared spaces and connections to the outdoors to seem larger than its physical boundaries.” We’re pleased to share this honor with the homeowners, Julie Hulme and Rob Handy; the general contractor, Six Degrees Construction; and the consultants and subcontractors. Below is the text of the article published in the FineHomebuilding 2013 Awards Issue.

A Garden Cottage for Low-Impact Living

This 800 sq. ft. infill home was design for its site and its owners lifestyle

By Nir Pearlson

When I first met my clients, Julie, a veteran elementary school teacher, and Rob, a county commissioner, they had been living in a 600-sq.-ft. remodeled chicken coop on a 2.1-acre property for 28 years. Committed to a low-impact and highly self-sufficient lifestyle, they were on a quest to replace the chicken coop with a simple and sustainable home. Their house would need to be durable, low maintenance, and energy efficient, and it would need to complement their sprawling garden. Most of all, they hoped, their home would inspire them with beauty every day.

Julie and Rob’s vision echoed my firm’s mission to design sustainable small-scale homes and to promote urban infill. In addition, I immediately fell in love with their garden, an oasis of tranquility and sustenance minutes from Eugene’s downtown. My firm’s challenge was to design a compact house that would support a modest lifestyle yet foster a sense of abundance.

A verdant site near an urban core
Julie and Rob’s lot is a remnant of the farmland that surrounded Eugene in its early days, most of which has since been subdivided into small residential lots. Oriented east-west, the 700-ft.-long lot provides a generous solar exposure that combines with rich floodplain soil to make this property ideal for gardening. During the summer, the vegetable garden provides most of Julie and Rob’s food, as well as a surplus that they store for the winter. The lot extends between a major traffic arterial on the west and a bike path along the Willamette River to the east. Immediate access to
transportation, city amenities, and the river’s ecosystem translates into urban living at its very best.

In addition to its vegetable and ornamental gardens, the property hosted a weathered barn, a storage shed, Julie and Rob’s chicken coop, and a bungalow from the 1920s that faces the street and is leased by long-term tenants. With no desire for large interiors, Julie and Rob had chosen to live in the smaller accessory house, and they wanted their new home to occupy the same location
among the vegetable beds and fruit trees. Because they spend much of their time tending the land, maintaining visual and physical access to the outdoors was a top priority, so the design of the new house centered on the garden.

Julie and Rob wanted more space than they had in the old coop, but they were content to limit the area and height of their new home to comply with local regulations for secondary dwelling units. To accommodate future growth through greater housing density, Eugene’s zoning code allows construction of accessory dwellings alongside existing homes on single-home residential properties. (For more on this concept, see “Rise of the ADU,” pp. 80-85). Although the zoning code limits the interior of an accessory dwelling to 800 sq. ft. of living space, it allows this living space to be augmented with covered outdoor areas and storage or utility rooms with exterior access.

We took advantage of this allowance to add a mechanical room and multiple covered porches, and because areas with low headroom are not legally considered habitable rooms, we included a bonus space. This area, accessed by a ladder, includes a concealed mechanical-equipment attic and an open, daylit meditation loft.

Designed for the Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is known for its long, rainy winters, prompting a “shed the water and bring in the light” strategy. Summers can be hot, however, so solar protection is necessary. Generous overhangs on the house’s low-sloped shed roofs address all these issues. The south-sloping roof extends the full width of the house and shelters the great-room windows from winter storms and summer heat. It also points two solar arrays toward the sun and allows for north-facing clerestories to illuminate the guest room and loft. The north-facing roof opens the main bedroom to garden views and to mini-clerestories. A small roof on the west shelters the entry. To the south, a roof over the patio springs up and away from the house to frame expansive views and to allow low-angle winter sun to penetrate the indoors. The windows, clerestories, skylights, and three exterior glazed doors provide an ongoing connection with the outdoors and bring in ample daylight.

Julie and Rob wanted their home to represent the Pacific Northwest aesthetically as well. Combining modern forms with traditional craftsmanship, this hybrid timberframe house includes exposed, load-bearing heavy-timber construction as well as standard joists and studs. Posts, beams, rafters, and roof decking were milled from regional Douglas-fir or hemlock timber. The woodwork is clear-coated, which highlights the mineral-tinted Imperial Plaster wall finish (usg.com).

Sightlines and views make a small house feel spacious
Julie and Rob wanted their home to be at what they called a “human scale.” Julie defines that as “not so big as to feel dwarfed and diminished, but not so small as to feel confined and limited.” With Julie and Rob’s human scale in mind, we designed the roof—with its rafters exposed—to define the scale, orientation, and character of each interior space. With no option for vast rooms,
we mixed and overlapped the entry, living, dining, kitchen, and circulation spaces into a great room. Long vistas through spaces, windows, and doors foster a sense of expansion, while coves such as a window seat off the great room allow for repose.

To prevent monotony, spaces are delineated by changes in flooring or with cabinets or built-ins. For example, the slate flooring transitions from the entry into a simple hearth, where a woodstove visually anchors the great room.

Third-party certification confirms the home’s quality construction
Julie and Rob’s commitment to sustainable living allowed us to select strategies to reduce their carbon footprint significantly. This earned their home an Earth Advantage Platinum Certification, the highest level offered by Earth Advantage New Homes, an Oregon-based third-party certification program. Earth Advantage weighs energy efficiency, indoor-air quality, resource efficiency, environmental responsibility, and water conservation.

The roof and walls were sheathed with a continuous layer of rigid foam, 1 in. on the walls and 2 in. on the roof. This foam prevents thermal bridging and insulates well beyond code levels. Daylight from the windows minimizes the need for electric lighting, and a minisplit heat pump couples with a heat-recovery ventilator to heat and ventilate the home efficiently. A woodstove provides backup heat and ambiance.

A grid-tied solar photovoltaic array offsets summertime electricity use; domestic hot water is provided by a solar hot-water collector. In the future, a gray-water diversion system and rainwater catchment cisterns will supply irrigation water to the gardens.

Julie and Rob are satisfied with their new home. Julie says, “Our home is the intimate interplay of inside cozy places of sanctuary and outside gardens splashing light and life through windows. The eye and heart dance from one angle of beauty to another as the intersections create a peaceful harmony.”

Small Home Suits Its Site

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By Nir Pearlson

Photos by Jeremy Bronson;

                  Roger Ota & Patrick Welsh where noted

 

This compact, panelized home takes its design inspiration from the vast Oregon landscape and local building traditions.

Playa is a retreat center in Eastern Oregon that offers residency to artists, writers, and scientists. The small campus is set on the shore of Summer Lake between the Fremont-Winema Forest and the Great Basin. Following steady growth and popularity, Playa’s Board of Directors committed in 2014 to building a new small home for the incoming executive director. Playa’s co-founder, Bill Roach, a master designer with four decades of experience building custom homes, asked us to join the design team.

We had collaborated before, in 2008, when Roger Ota, my lead designer, and I partnered with Bill to upgrade Playa’s site and infrastructure and reinvent its common building. Since then, the three of us have continued to explore new architectural frontiers. In addition to ongoing conversations via phone and email, we’ve met periodically over the years to huddle over sketch pads and pints of Oregon craft beer to share design concepts, discuss construction technology, and debate the merits of prefabrication.

The need for a new small home at Playa provided us with a perfect opportunity to test our theories and creativity. Bill launched the endeavor with elegantly hand-drawn plans, sections, and elevations of a two-­bedroom cottage. Over the next two years, Bill, Roger, and I methodically honed in on a design scheme that put a high priority on the landscape, modular construction, and sustainability. Construction began in 2016.

The Setting

Playa is surrounded by powerful geography. The steep basalt slopes of Winter Rim rising to the west and south instill a sense of safety and stability at the site. To the east, flat terrain stretches far beyond the alkaline lake bed to a distant horizon. Overhead, ever-changing drama unfolds in the big sky: rolling cloud formations, fluctuating color gradients, and the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. This unique setting became a key determinant of the building’s form, orientation, and organization. The shed roof resembles the gentle rise of the hills that wrap around the lake’s southern end, and offers a protective element against the prevailing winter winds that rush down the slopes from the southwest. The west-facing main entry under the low end of the roof creates a natural sequence of movement through gradually rising interior spaces. Tall walls shelter a patio on the northeast side of the house. Within this form, the rooms are arrayed to take full advantage of the varied vistas, ushering in the changing light as the sun arcs across the sky.

The build

Early on, we decided to gear the design toward prefabrication, which we believe is the future of affordable and sustainable housing. Each part of the home is defined by appropriately proportioned shapes. Overlaid on a four-foot grid, the spaces—living room, kitchen/dining room, bedrooms, bathroom/laundry, and entry and circulation hall—can be repeated, rotated, mirrored, and nestled together into other patterns. In other words, this plan can be easily customized to suit the needs of a variety of homeowners using the same basic shapes and spaces, and if it were offered as a prefab home, the same modules.

The plan includes a utility core where the major mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems are consolidated into a centrally-located module and a wet wall that houses all of the plumbing for the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry area.

Our strategy turned out to be a bit ahead of our time. We were able to find only one regional manufacturer interested in building the modules we needed for the home, but the quote was cost prohibitive. Still, in order to reduce the amount of material transported to the remote location, we had the walls panelized in Eugene, Oregon.

The temperatures in Summer Lake frequently swing 30° to 40° within a day, regularly dipping below freezing in the winter and hovering around 100°F in the summer. We carefully detailed the home’s envelope with rigid mineral wool outside of the wall sheathing and spray foam under the roof decking, in addition to full-cavity batt insulation. The house is heated with a high-efficiency mini split system and a wood-burning stove and ventilated with a heat-recovery ventilator. The metal siding and roof are maintenance-free, and the big windows, glazed doors, and a skylight bring in abundant daylight.
The most sustainable feature of the house is its size, which is “among the most important determinants of environmental impact,” according to a 2010 report from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Despite its 960-sq.-ft. footprint, the house’s tall ceilings, interlinked spaces, and long vistas make this compact home feel expansive.

 

2017 People’s Choice Award (Commercial)

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1st Place – Commercial
Featuring: Timbers Inn

This annual competition was organized at the Broadway Commerce Center in downtown Eugene during the month of October, where local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

2017-PCA-Announcement-RG-Insert.pdf

RECLAIMING TIMBERS

Project
Timbers Inn
Eugene, Oregon
Architect
Nir Pearlson Architect
Project Manager: Roger Ota
Structural Engineer
Woodchuck Engineering
Logo Designer
Hopper Design & Illustration
General Contractor
Allen Co. Design it! Build it! LLC
Photos
Bronson Studios Photography

CHALLENGE

  • Reclaim and rebuild an under-utilized motel office building that housed a cramped, dark, dated lobby, and an unoccupied former manager’s apartment.
  • Re-brand the motel with a fresh, recognizable, and iconic identity – in keeping with its modernist past.
  • Provide open, interconnected interior spaces that are easy to monitor and service from a central reception station.
  • Enhance visibility and connectivity between the interior and the outside.
  • Create patios and planted buffers to replace existing asphalt paving.

CONCEPTS

  • While most of the finishes and all the interior partitions were removed, the iconic mid-century massive stone walls, exposed post-and-beam structure, and natural fir ceiling were preserved and featured.
  • The building envelope was expanded to replace unused patios with a lobby & bar, and a generous breakfast lounge.
  • The spacious, flowing interior opens wide windows towards the street corner and the surrounding motel rooms.
  • Two sheltered corner dining & gathering patios linked to the interior, are fitted with long wood benches and surrounded by landscaped concrete planters.
  • The material palette complements the building style, and includes charcoal concrete, stained cedar and black metal trim on the exterior, and a warm collection of wood species on the interior.

2017 People’s Choice Award -Residential (Submittal)

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Submittal for Residential Category
Featuring: Summer Lake Residence

This annual competition will be organized at the Broadway Commerce Center in downtown Eugene during the month of October, where local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

BETWEEN BASIN & RANGE

Project
Summer Lake Residence
PLAYA at Summer Lake, Oregon
Design Team
Bill Roach
Roger Ota
Nir Pearlson
Structural Engineer
Johnson Broderick Engineering
General Contractor
Sweeney Building Company, Lakeview, OR
Foundation & Panel Framing Contractor
Markus-Thompson, Springfield, OR
Photos
Bronson Studios Photography

CHALLENGE

  • Provide a modest residence at PLAYA Artist Retreat Center at Summer Lake, located at eastern foot of the Fremont Mountains range, and looking east towards the Great Sandy Desert basin.
  • Design a building that is informed by, and integrates with, the surrounding landscape and the local building vernacular.
  • Facilitate construction at this rural location where resources are limited, by relying on materials and technologies sourced at a regional industrial centers.

CONCEPTS

  • This house prototype is composed of repeating rectangular plan modules, based on a four-foot grid.
  • The structure is constructed with standard light-wood framing materials, pre-fabricated into panels and components that are trucked in and assembled on site.
  • The utility of the metal siding is replaced around the entry areas with the inviting warmth of cedar boards.
  • The continuous low-slope roof plane is simple to construct, provides excellent protection from prevailing wind and driving rain, and facilitates potential rainwater harvesting.
  • The interior organization, varying ceiling heights, and long vistas through oversized windows, make this compact 960-SF home feel expansive.

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

  • Construction impact was reduced by site-assembling prefabricated components.
  • The modular design ensures maximum material efficiency and minimal construction waste.
  • Wrapped in a double-insulated wall, the home is conditioned with an efficient heat pump, a back-up wood stove, and a Heat Recovery Ventilator.
  • Abundant daylight is provided via oversized windows, glazed doors, and a central skylight.

Craftsman Comforts- A Cal Young Home Shines with an Open Floor Plan

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Modern Craftsman Redesign – Great room creates open, connective tone

By Paul Omundson                                                                                   Photos by Jeremy Bronson

An angular steel roof dotted with skylights and solar tubes contrasts crisply with fir trim and double front doors of this completely redesigned modern Craftsman home in Eugene’s Cal Young neighborhood. Open the front doors with their six distinctive square-stepped windows to reveal the real heart of this home.

The heart, and soul, is the great room, encompassing a large kitchen, adjacent family room and dining room bay. The spaces feature a vaulted ceiling, generous south-facing windows, a bay window seat, and accent lighting. Ample daylight and clear sightlines to the backyard make the area seem bigger and more expansive than it is.

“This is what we envisioned,” says owner John Coble. “We didn’t want a home with a lot of separations.” He and wife Kathy have lived in homes with too many walls and other barriers, as the previous version of this home had. “We like it to be open and inviting,” Kathy Coble adds.
Visitors will notice an interesting twist on connectivity as they step through the beautiful front doors. At the end of the entry hall is a rectangular trimmed 6 foot by 3 foot window opening, providing a visual link into the expansive kitchen. Kathy enjoys the openness that this adds to the space. Designer Roger Ota, with Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc., designed the view to be perfectly balanced with the front doors’ six jewel-like windows and porcelain-tiled entry hall. Kathy enhanced the kitchen opening nicely with a rack of pewter dishes on the display shelf above, playfully placing a favorite Groucho puppet on the window sill.

Inside the house, visitors and residents invariably gravitate to the spacious, comfortable kitchen. “Everyone does,” John nods. It’s the inviting 5 foot by 10.5 foot granite island in the middle that John refers to as a “continent” that provides a draw. Generous passages between work counters facilitate social interaction and make the central kitchen a wide open, pleasant place to spend time. As many as 9 people can sit comfortably at the island, and under-counter refrigerator drawers ensure that supplies are easily at hand for host and guests. A state-of-the-art six-burner gas stove and warming drawers are embedded on one side of the island, and as Kathy and John prepare food for guests and family sitting just a couple of feet away, conversation is unimpeded.

Kathy wanted the new copper farm sink to be located by a window. Since the sink fit best on an interior wall, architects and owners created another “window” there, commissioning local artist Steve Langston (Langston Art Glass) to create a stained glass art piece, depicting the family’s West Coast ties: a Mt. Rainier view, representing Washington; redwood and cypress trees, for California; and Willamette Valley and ocean beaches scenes, for Oregon. The artwork is backlit naturally by day via a tubular skylight, and with soft artificial light at night. It’s a stunning addition to both kitchen and mudroom on the other side of the wall.

Close to the central kitchen is the dining room niche with a built-in buffet and display cabinets. This intimate space features solarium-like windows opening to the backyardand an elegant dining room table and chairs make it a magical spot. Besides dining functions, the room lends itself to large projects such as crafts, puzzles, and paperwork. On the other end of the great room is the living room, accentuated by the fir ceiling and trim and a tall, slate-clad modern gas fireplace. It’s a great place for the Cobles and guests to sink into the comfy couch and bay window seat in the evening, watch TV and visit.

Exterior features include the generous patio terrace connecting the great room to the yard, a timber-framed gazebo, and sustainable living amenities: a 4,500-gallon rainwater harvesting system, and a 5.2 kW photovoltaic solar array on the garage roof. “We wanted to do as much as we could to minimize our impact and energy use,”
says John. They are considering expanding the photovoltaic system, and will soon be adding a greenhouse to compliment the raised garden beds and blueberry patch. The family enjoys gardening and barbequing frequently and sees the south yard as an extension of the indoor living spaces. Another unique element is the high-bay garage on the west end of the home. The 900 squarefoot garage accommodates the family’s car, RV, and larger models to come. “That was a real challenge, architecturally,” says Ota. “We didn’t want it to look out of scale compared to the house so we set the garage back a bit and brought the entry and carport roof edge down.”

The house also accommodates Kathy’s passion for crafts. Located close to the main living space, the room features generous storage and a work counter overlooking the front yard and entry path. Having a dedicated space to work in allows Kathy to come and go from a project without worrying about cluttering a public space, and provides her with a separate environment where she can focus on her art.

“It was a great collaboration with these guys,” John says, referring to Ota in the lead design role and the rest of the team at Nir Pearlson Architect who added creative input. The project’s success owes much to the practical building and design knowledge provided by Paul Allen, builder (Allen Co Design it! Build It! LLC) the craftsmanship of all of his dedicated sub-contractors and suppliers, and the creative structural work of Pioneer Engineering (structural engineers). The harmonious relationship between owner, architect and contractor is apparent in the results of the project. “Projects with Paul are especially satisfying because he is respectful of design ideas, communicative with architect and client, and enjoys providing a beautiful end result. Combine this with the Cobles’ clear vision and goals, and you have a perfect situation for a very successful project”, says Ota.

The Cobles have travelled between families in San Francisco and Seattle for years. In the process, they fell in love with Eugene. Now, they have the pleasure of living here permanently in a gleaming, redesigned modern Craftsman home, tailored to their style.

Raising Timbers- A downtown Eugene motel undergoes a major renovation

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Raising Timbers- A downtown Eugene motel undergoes a major renovation

By Ed Russo
Photos by Brian Davies

The renovation of The Timbers Motel office in downtown Eugene is the most noticeable change at the 59-year-old lodging establishment, though part of a larger effort that those involved describe as the motel’s reinvention project.

The motel — recognizable by its stone facades and planters filled in the summer with blooming fuschias and begonias — has a new name — Timbers Inn. And the next generation of family ownership — Daniel Kim and Joseph Bailey — are taking over the business.

In fact, the $600,000 renovation was the brothers’ idea. They are modernizing the motel at East 10th Avenue and Pearl Street, and adding amenities to make it more competitive with Eugene and Springfield’s growing number of newer hotels and motels.

They say it is the single-most expensive renovation in the Timbers’ history.

“We are trying to bring it up-to-date while, at the same time, keeping the (midcentury modern) character,” Bailey said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

The brothers are counting on the building renovation and amenities to bring more customers to the hotel, which currently has an occupancy rate of between 50 percent to 60 percent. They hope to boost average room occupancy to 75 percent to 80 percent.
“We want to become a destination motel,” Kim said.

The renovation and amenities also will allow the owners to raise room rents, with the goal of boosting profits.

Dates to 1958
The 42-room Timbers Motel, across the street from the Greyhound bus station, was built in 1958.

It was acquired in 1994 by Joseph and Chong Bailey, who owned a neighborhood market
in southeast Portland. After moving to Eugene, with their sons, then 16 and nine, the
couple worked long hours running the hotel. Their bedroom was in a room in the office, while the boys slept in a motel room every night. Growing up, the brothers worked in the
motel.

“We’d come home from school and help with the laundry,” Bailey said. “We could not
spend time with friends until it was done.” Kim left home first, moving to Austin, Texas,
where he later graduated from the University of Texas.

His younger brother eventually joined him in Austin, where he completed
his senior year of high school.

Kim returned to Eugene for a short time to help his mother, who had acquired the Sushi Station on East Fifth Avenue, near Steelhead Brewery. After owning the business for less than two years, she sold it in about 2006.

Kim returned to Austin, got married and bought a Days Inn motel near the University of
Texas. His brother, meanwhile, had majored in economics at the University of Texas. His minor was Japanese, which he learned to speak fluently, and he spent a year studying and working in Japan.

Not long ago, the brothers didn’t think they would return to Eugene and operate the motel, let alone oversee its renovation.

But their parents developed health problems, so they returned home, at different times. In 2011, Joseph moved back to Eugene to help run the business because their mother was ailing.

In 2015, Daniel and his wife and three children moved to Eugene after their father had a
stroke. “We really had to step in,” Kim, 39, said. Taking stock of the business, the brothers decided to upgrade the building that houses the motel’s office. The motel’s rooms are remodeled every so often to keep them looking fresh for guests. However, the office, had never received a major upgrade.

“At the time the hotel was built, in 1958, there was no such thing as continental breakfast or free wi-fi,” Bailey, 32, said. “It was very simple. You just had a room.”

The brothers hired architect Nir Pearlson, who, with lead designer, Roger Ota, developed
plans for the building’s makeover.

The building “contained a cluster of disconnected, cramped, and underutilized spaces,” Pearlson said. “The owners recognized the need to reorganize the spaces, and while desiring a major facelift, they sought to preserve the iconic spirit of the place.”

The work by general contractor Paul Allen of Allen Co. and others expanded the 1,240-square-foot building by 300 square feet and added an outdoor patio.

Work to be done soon

Construction, which required a gutting of the office building, began last November. The front desk has been temporarily moved to a motel room.

Previously, the building contained a small front desk and no place for guests to relax, eat
or drink.

The renovation is expected to be finished later this month or by early June. After the remodeling is complete, guests will use the dramatically changed building to check in, as well as to eat breakfast, relax and partake of complimentary early evening craft beer, wine or kombucha.

The building’s interior has been renovated with extensive wood treatments, in recognition of the motel’s name and region’s timber industry. The floor is covcovered in dark stained oak and large wood framed windows and doors let in natural light. In the dining area, light colored cabinets and shelves made of Douglas fir are paired with black quartz
counter tops.

Rough-hewn reclaimed wood is attached to a wall in the dining area and under the counter of the check-in desk. An 11-foot tall fireplace with a walnut mantle will provide guests a place to gather around.

The building’s original attractive tongue and groove hemlock ceiling has been enhanced through a light sanding and an application of clear coat.

The renovation added a warming kitchen that will allow the motel to offer something that has been customary for years in other hotels — complimentary breakfast.

The morning meal will include eggs, bacon waffles and other breakfast dishes, as well as rice and miso soup, the brothers said. Five tables made of reclaimed wood by Urban Lumber Company of Springfield will provide dining and drinking places for about 20 guests.

Five tables made of reclaimed wood by Urban Lumber Company of Springfield will provide dining and drinking places for about 20 guests.

The project also included a pair of handicapped accessible bathrooms and a small back office.

Guests can gather outside on the patio under the building’s overhanging roof. The patio is separated from the parking lot with 2½-feet tall concrete flower planters with backrests and wooden bench that will give guests a place to sit. Two exterior walls have been clad in dark gray stained cedar.

The 10th Avenue side of the building’s distinctive stone facade, made from basalt from Eastern Oregon, will be illuminated by LED lights.

Also, the motel is getting a new pole-mounted sign above the office that will display the new name, Timbers Inn, in orange-gold lettering above three green trees
against a brown backdrop.

Mike Hopper, a Eugene graphic artist, created the design for the sign, which will serve as the motel’s new logo.

“He came up with a design that is totally retro, that captures the whole spirit of the place,” Pearlson said. “The sign will cinch everything together and create a brand.”

He said he was pleased to work on the project.

“It is a delight to experience how the final results celebrate the 1950s without becoming a cliché, Pearlson said.

The renovated building has a sense of “laidback elegance,” he said. Motel guests will be offered complimentary beer and wine in the lobby during the evenings, with local craft beer and wines.

Daily room rates at Timbers Inn during the peak summer travel season have been about $100 a night, but the renovation and the amenities will likely push that to about $129 or
more.

“This will help us better compete with the bigger hotels,” Kim said.