The Burien couple wanted a home that combined traditional Italian style with a modernism to fit the Northwest. “They wanted old-world Tuscan with a 21st-century twist,” designer Kathy Merrill Kelley explains.
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Under Their Tuscan Sun
Architect Joseph Greif and interior designer Kathy Merrill Kelley create a home with the flavor of Tuscany for a couple in Burien. Who knew Puget Sound would make such a fitting backdrop for a villa where the outdoors fit in just as well as the indoors?
BY
Allison Lind
PHOTOGRAPHY
Alex Hayden

In this residence, interior and exterior are not isolated living areas. A large Bruce Eicher cast-concrete dining table with marble inset and Bruce Eicher chairs upholstered in all-weather Perennials fabric create an often-used dining space on one outdoor terrace.
Sliding glass pocket doors form the separation between outdoor and indoor spaces. When closed, they—along with the clerestory windows—let natural sunlight flood the interior.
Landscaping by Barbara Oakrock incorporates the local environment and the stone base upon which the home sits as if it were a historic partner with the site, further asserting the idea of old world meets new.
Large pocket doors open the master bedroom to the front terrace and its sweeping view of Puget Sound. “We wanted to drastically blur the edge between inside and out,” architect Joseph Greif says. “Thus the terraces were designed so that it would be just as comfortable to be outside as inside.”
A striking wrought-iron art deco chandelier hangs in the formal dining room; it’s circa 1930, from the entrance hall of the Prefecture of the Calvados Department, a region of Normandy, France, established during the French Revolution.
The front door establishes a grand, formal entrance; hand-wrought ironwork throughout the residence is by Fritz Church.
Adjacent to the kitchen, a back terrace running the length of the home is used for barbecuing, casual dining and living al fresco.
Most Seattleites looking for a getaway to a quaint Tuscan villa buy a plane ticket. But for two Burien residents, that wasn’t enough; they wanted their own Tuscan villa right here at home. So they called in architect Joseph Greif and interior designer Kathy Merrill Kelley to help them achieve their vision.

“The wife had a strong sense of what they were looking for,” Greif says of his clients. “The goal was to rouse the old-world charm of Italy—connecting them to their Italian roots—while creating a home that belongs perfectly in the Northwest.”

The couple already had the ideal site: a view-oriented spot high above Puget Sound, where they had lived for years and raised their family. With their three children grown—and grandchildren on the way—they decided to tear down the old home to make room for a more spacious one that would better serve as a family gathering place for years to come.

Greif’s initial plans were inspired in large part by aspects of the surrounding environment—the site’s view takes in Mount Rainier, Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. The house sits atop a man-made stone base that anchors it to the hillside and maximizes the view.

To take advantage of the tangible world beyond the home’s walls, terraces establish indoor-outdoor living areas on both the view side and the hill side. Large glass doors that slide into pockets in the walls create a seamless connection to the outdoors and allow natural light to flood the interior on the top floor, which contains the main living areas—living room, kitchen, dining room and master suite. The lower floor features two guest rooms, a large home theater, a spacious wine cellar, a cigar lounge and a pool room, as well as access to the adjacent garage and an elevator for carrying groceries to the second floor.

Such devotion to designing for indoor-outdoor living might seem odd in a place like the Northwest, but the design team had a method to their supposed madness.

“Christmas comes only once a year, but when it is here, it is worth living for the experience,” Greif notes. “The open wall concept is the same—even if it is opened up only once a year, it would be worth living for the experience.”

Philosophy aside, Greif says the walls are open more than they are closed: “Six months or more out of the year [the owners] have been shocked to find themselves living with the doors open when the sun shines.”

The largest outdoor space is adjacent to the dining room. Fully covered, it is used as an outdoor living room. In total, three separate terraces accommodate all aspects of outdoor living—casual and more formal dining, cooking and a conversation area.

Turkish limestone pavers are used inside and out, visually connecting the spaces. Inside, the stone is heated to keep bare toes warm during the colder months.

“The homeowners really make great use of the space during all seasons; they’re excellent cooks and great hosts,” says interior designer Merrill Kelley, who also designed the homeowners’ Hawaii residence and has since become a close friend of the couple. “They love to entertain and share their homes. This home was built specifically around that premise.”

To achieve a Tuscan feel and “brighten up the Seattle dreariness,” Merrill Kelley chose a color palette of rich golden hues, which continues outside in furnishings and plantings to unify indoors and out.

“The interior and exterior really cater to the comforts of the owners,” Merrill Kelley says. “Sensuous details found in wood, stone and fabrics, plus textural elements such as hand-troweled plaster, hand-wrought metal work and paneled-wood accents, all combine to achieve the old-world charm they desired.”

Much of the art in the home is by Hawaiian artist George Woollard—the homeowners have the largest collection of his art in existence. Merrill Kelley says she and the lady of the house love to sit and paint together too, and some of their pieces hang throughout the house.

On a nice day, it isn’t unusual to find the homeowner painting on the comfortable front patio, which offers the perfect muse for a stunning landscape painting. On a clear day, the full motion of the sun—from rise to set—can be admired over the sound. It may not be Italy, but the owners of this house are happy to have created their own private Tuscany above Puget Sound.

Allison Lind’s writing also appears in Remodeling & Makeovers and Ty Pennington at Home.

Design Details

Architect
Joseph Greif, Joseph Greif Architects,
921 N.E. Boat St., (206) 633-4293

Interior Designer
Kathy Merrill Kelley, ASID,
Merrill & Associates Inc. Interior Design,
501 Sumner St., Ste. 421, Honolulu,
(808) 523-3550

Contractor
Frank Firmani, owner,
John Kuchta, superintendent, Charter Construction,
980 S. Harney St.,
(206) 382-1900