Sandpoint Custom Home

A family looking to build their long-term home in Seattle's Sandpoint neighborhood wanted modern design, sustainable systems, and a house that fit into an established streetscape without feeling constrained by it.

PROJECT STORY

A house designed to use less, and do more with it

The site in Sandpoint presented two challenges from the start. The lot wasn't orthogonal, which complicated the relationship between the house and the street. And the neighborhood had HOA guidelines that regulated scale and appearance, which meant a large modern house had to be designed carefully to read as belonging. The solution was to push significant square footage below grade, placing the garage, laundry, music room, and utility spaces underground. Above grade, the house presents a modern gable form combined with a low-slope mid-century entry and living room volume. The result is a house that sits comfortably in the neighborhood while delivering considerably more space than its street presence suggests.

The clients wanted the house to be large without being wasteful, and asked for a full suite of sustainable systems from the start. The design incorporated a complete photovoltaic array and one of the more thorough greywater systems developed for a residential project in Seattle. Working with 2020 Engineering, the team designed a system that both collects rainwater and treats greywater for reuse, routing reclaimed water to toilet flushing, clothes washing, and irrigation. A 10,000 gallon cistern anchors the system. Together the water reclamation strategy reduces the home's water use by approximately 75%.

The project reached full permit and received three contractor bids before the clients decided to move in a different direction. The design stands as a complete and permitted document — a house ready to be built, with the full scope of its sustainable ambitions resolved and priced. It represents the kind of thorough, integrated thinking Spotswood brings to projects where sustainability isn't an add-on but a core part of the brief from day one.