Bailer Hill: A Modern Home Design with A Connection to the Landscape and View

It is a modern home anchored to a rocky slope and looking out over expansive water views designed by Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects. Bailer Hill is the expression of the clients’ desire to connect to the surrounding landscape and stunning view beyond. Completed in 2017, this project has earned an award from AIA Seattle Home of Distinction in 2018.

Site

Even as it rises above the ground highly, this house remains rooted in the earth firmly. Cascading down the hill organically, this house is a complex form with a simple goal: capturing the beauty of its stunning site.

Design

There are stacked boxes that end in large lift-slide doors. These doors direct each interior of the house to the awesome specific views. The walls are perforated by the clusters of smaller horizontal lites, letting natural light in and glimpsing of the local terrain.

The volumes of the house shift upslope as they rise to create grass-roof patios. These patios can be accessed from each floor of the house. Each view outward over the water is opened by the sparse tree cover, including the view outward the southwest to Victoria and Port Townsend and south toward Port Angeles.

Spaces

An open living, dining, and kitchen space, airy and full of sunlight are located at the main volume of the house. There is a reading room in a nook to the side, formed by bookcases’ walls which flow out of the smaller scattered window pattern seamlessly.

An office, storage, and bath toward the back of the house completing the ground floor while the master suite is tucked into the basement level privacy. A guest suite can be found on the second level’s volume and there is an open art studio tops the stack.

Bailer Hill Gallery

Photography: Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects