Stefan and Angela Walz’s edgy, concrete home isn’t the only one that sticks out in Clark County. Others have used not-so-common building and design methods to give their home an edge when its comes to energy efficiency, aesthetics or both. Here is a sampling of the head-turning homes in Clark County.
Power house
This house on the west bank of the Washougal River was built in 1969 on the concrete base of an old power-generating plant, which was part of a hydroelectric dam built across the river in 1922. The Cottrell Dam was blown up with dynamite in 1947 to open the river for steelhead runs, but the concrete base was left behind.
Milk carton house
Each floor of this house in Hazel Dell is 480 square feet, even the basement, giving it a tall, skinny shape reminiscent of a milk carton. Despite looking like a quaint old house plucked from Germany, the home off Northwest 99th Street was actually built in 1993, according to Clark County property records. It’s just a few blocks away from Hazel Dell Avenue and the hustle and bustle of a strip mall.
I-205 view house
One might think that being located almost directly under the Interstate 205 bridge would be a detriment, but the owner of a modern-looking house off Evergreen Highway has capitalized on the unusual location, dubbing it the Bridgeview Vacation Home. John Relyea rents out the three-bedroom house he built in 2006. The design is meant to mimic the look of the Glenn Jackson Bridge with expansive windows representing the bridge’s columns. “I got that piece of property, because no one wanted it,” Relyea said. “I took it, because I fell in love with the view of the bridge.”
To muffle the noise of cars and trains, Relyea built the house with triple-pane windows and concrete siding mounted to aircraft rubber. Originally, the house was for sale, but when the economy tanked, Relyea turned it into a vacation home, given its unusualness and proximity to Portland. People from Ireland stayed there last week.
Straw and clay house
Dillon and Patricia Haggerty bought a farmhouse on 7 acres in Clark County’s Proebstel neighborhood. They stripped the house to its frame and rebuilt it using a straw-clay mixture to insulate the house. That was layered with an earthen plaster and naturally dyed. The couple tried to recycle as many materials as they could throughout the predominantly DIY process: The kitchen backsplash is made from scrap wood and tile, river rock lines an area of the floor, the flooring in another room is made of paper bags, glass bottles line the front entryway and leftover siding decorates the master bedroom.
Straw bale house
Houses built with straw bales (no mud involved) are rare in Clark County. This 2,518-square-foot house in Ridgefield was assembled using 612 straw bales that were sheared to fit snugly within the 18-inch-deep wall frames and covered by a coating of lime plaster. The owners, Roy and Allisan Buckingham, decided on the atypical building technique for its energy-efficient qualities and low environmental impact. Like the Haggertys’ home, it looks like a conventional house from the outside.
Camas castle
On a flight to Portland International Airport, one might spot the tower of a castle in Camas, but this castle wasn’t built in the 1800s; it was completed in 1985.
Author Chuck Palahniuk, who has a home in Washougal, writes about the castle in a chapter of “Stranger Than Fiction,” a collection of his nonfiction essays: “A vision of white battlements and towers. Narrow white turrets and a drawbridge that spans a murky lake, its water pooling around a crumbling stone ruin. At one end, stand a massive round keep. There, in the hills above the blue-collar town of Camas, Washington, where most days the air smells like the sour steam from the paper mill, there it is: A castle. A big castle. A real castle. It’s surrounded by little hobby farms and tract housing developments and the huge postmodern complex of the new Camas High School, but this is a Viking castle. Complete with racks filled with battle-axes, ready for the next fight. A fire-breathing dragon. Gates sixteen feet tall.”
Despite the novel exterior, its interior looks normal.
Palahniuk goes on to talk about this underground group of castle people in Washington who are building modern-day fortresses.
