Greenness is a private four lot residential park ~ 20 miles north of Seattle on Puget Sound’s coast. It’s centrally located and when traffic’s light ~ 30 minutes to downtowns Seattle, Bellevue, or Everett. Lot I is Greenness’ most favored and includes the top, west, and south slopes of its own coastal promontory rising up from a vibrant wildlife refuge stretching along the steep coastal bluff with unobstructed solar access and spectacular panoramic views of the Olympic Mountains and Peninsula, Whidbey Island, and Admiralty Inlet. Its house was conceived, designed, and largely built in 1962 by Grace LaRose, a very brave, artistic, and determined woman. Like many other Northwest artists, architects, and design thinkers, Grace was drawn to the time’s most contemporary international design style from Germany and Japan with its more open, functional, flexible, and minimalistic floor plans and expansive view windows interconnecting interior and exterior spaces that became so popular throughout the world. Perfectly aligning and recessing the house’s steel reinforced concrete daylight basement into the site’s slopes, Grace provided unobstructed solar access to heat the earth sheltered thermal mass below. With an advanced custom fireplace and 4’ overhangs to block summer’s sun, it could be the Northwest’s first resource conserving earth sheltered passively solar heated house. Since purchasing the estate 31 years ago, the owners have made several improvements and have plans for more.
