The main cabin and guest house are both organized around the concept of a main or great room in front, indicated on the exterior with black paint, and a smaller, more utilitarian space—what owner Julie Dunnington refers to as a “lean-to”—behind it.
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Pavilion with a View
A small contemporary island cabin offers familiar comforts and enough panoramic views to make the dwelling seem spacious. This retreat is all comfort, practicality and style with materials and furnishing inside and out that evoke all things rustic

Decatur Island is a unique place in the Northwest, a small island off the San Juan Islands ferry routes, with a tiny permanent population and a scattering of vacation homes. In the careful siting and generally small scale of the houses here, architects, planners and homeowners have always emphasized privacy and open space above all.

Located on a slope on the northwest side of Decatur overlooking Thatcher Pass, the cabin Bob Hull of the Miller Hull Partnership designed for Todd and Julie Dunnington exemplifies the kind of smart, contemporary vernacular design that has brought his Seattle firm renown in the architectural world.

Like the seven other cabins Miller Hull has designed on Decatur in the past two decades, this one is small—with a main section of just 528 square feet. The cabin has been positioned to take advantage of panoramic views. “We pushed the building out as far as possible, to make a pavilion,” Hull says. “And rather than build a deck, we treated the whole room as a deck.” He refers to the cabin’s great room, which rests atop a rough-finished base of concrete and combines living room, dining room and part of the kitchen into one expansive volume. This pavilion opens almost completely to the outside: Tall sliding doors on three sides of the building are elevated 18 inches above floor level and serve as expansive openable windows.

Attached to the pavilion’s south side, a smaller 8-foot-by-28-foot section of the building—what Julie Dunnington refers to as the “lean-to,” while architect Hull prefers the term “saddlebag”—contains the entry, a powder room, the working section of the kitchen and the stairway. The second story shelters two primary bedrooms on the view side, with a pair of bathrooms between them, and a second pair of smaller bedrooms in back. Roofing materials also distinguish the two building sections, with standing-seam metal over the pavilion and corrugated metal over the lean-to.

“We pushed the building out as far as possible to make a pavilion. And rather than build a deck, we treated the whole room as a deck.”—Architect Bob Hull

A separate guesthouse reprises the two-piece spatial organization of the cabin on a smaller scale. The 180-square-foot building is finished with a daybed and loft sleeping quarters along with a bathroom that includes an outdoor shower.

As small as they are, these two neatly designed structures, and the patios and open space that surround them, allow the Dunningtons to have “quiet weekends for just the three of us that are at home,” Julie says. “But with the extra rooms and the bunkhouse, we can sleep up to 12, so we take all four of our kids plus their friends or another family. In summer, we kayak and play tennis and go to the beach. In winter, one of our favorite times, we get together with other families for drinks and dinner almost every time we’re there.”

Julie, who hails from the Midwest, asked Hull “to make the place look rustic, like an old barn.” The architect responded with materials and applications that suggest that rough yet comfortable quality. Intentionally unfinished 2-foot-by-8-foot concrete panels form the exterior base, topped by cedar planks stained a semitransparent black on the second story above the pavilion. Steel-pipe columns separate the expansive sliding window-doors, and clear-finished cedar planking covers the exterior of the lean-to. The slender black steel pipes provide structural support and help to emphasize the verticality of the building.

Interior finishes further enhance the rusticity. Reclaimed pine floors are counterpointed with pine ceilings—2-inch gaps between the ceiling planks expose joists, flues and other functional elements, painted black to visually disappear.  The ceilings are bolted to the joists above, a practical solution that contributes to the rustic aesthetic. Interior walls are constructed of low-cost multidensity fiberboard (MDF). Upstairs, sliding barn doors access the bathrooms, and freestanding built-in beds sit in front of the windows, their storage-rich headboards floating midroom.

The kitchen and dining area are separated by a steel island with open pine cabinets and a concrete top. Open shelving lines the kitchen’s upper walls, finished in simple white subway tile. Kitchen counters are PaperStone, a green product made from resin and paper. A partly open-faced pine cabinet joined to the steel fireplace serves as the fourth wall of the otherwise glass-enclosed living room.

Furnishings are minimal, chosen by the owners for comfort and practicality. A large wooden dining table parallels the concrete-topped kitchen island. Stools provide counter seating, while the table has benches. Living room furniture includes a low-backed sofa, a couple of leather-clad chairs and a single side table. Upstairs, built-in beds are dressed in old-style ticking, with stripes that echo the walls and ceilings with their planks gapped to reveal stripes of white-painted MDF.

Outside, concrete slabs define patios and exterior gathering areas that include a cooking area sheltered by a corrugated-metal roof. The overall effect is understated, relaxed and comfortable; it’s an eclectic, contemporary application of vernacular style, with not a false move or wasted gesture—like the Decatur tradition itself.

Justin Henderson is a novelist and a freelance architectural and travel writer based in Seattle.

Design Details

Architects
Bob Hull and Renee Boone, the Miller Hull Partnership, LLP, Polson Building, 71 Columbia St., Sixth Floor, (206) 682-6837

Contractor
Mark Dupar, Decatur Construction, 415 Fifth St., Anacortes, (360) 293-9600
The main cabin is pushed to the front of the site to maximize views and eliminate the need for a deck. Instead, family members and guests gather by a sheltered outdoor cooking and dining area. The great room is anchored by a steel fireplace.


The great room in the main cabin is a single open volume—architect Bob Hull calls it a “pavilion”—that contains the living room, dining room and kitchen. Reclaimed plank flooring mirrors the ceiling, which has 2-inch spaces between boards to give it the look of an old barn. The oversized windows are actually sliding doors, 18 inches above the floor, specified by the architects to enhance the possibilities for inside/outside living. The owners chose casual furnishings for durability and comfort. The fireplace, open shelving and cabinet form a wall that divides the great room from the adjacent lean-to.


The dining area (viewed here from the kitchen) is furnished with a basic wooden table and a pair of benches and has a panoramic view to the north over Thatcher Pass and nearby islands.


A wood and steel counter with a concrete top separates the functional kitchen, located in the smaller, utilitarian lean-to space behind the main section of the cabin, from the dining area. Exposed joists and simple, white-painted MDF (multidensity fiberboard) walls add to the rustic quality of the interiors.


Concrete panels that form the base of the main cabin building rise directly out of the sloping ground. Like many cabins on Decatur Island, this one was sited to maximize privacy, views and open space. In addition to the change in exterior finishes that defines the two parts of the building—pavilion and lean-to—the roof also changes from standing seam to corrugated metal.



Upstairs, the designers floated the beds in front of the windows, then put storage space in the headboards in the middle of the room. Walls and ceiling are finished with planks and MDF; bathrooms are closed by sliding barn doors.