On a stormy night, when the wind’s whipping the Oregon coast at 100mph, you can hear the glass walls flex in Ryan Finley’s house. “I love the feeling that you’re in this envelope of protection with a tempest going on outside,” he says.
There’s a magical feel in the air. This northerly part of the West Coast has less sunshine and more unpredictable weather than California does. It’s about bald eagles and wild elk here, not surfers or bodybuilders. This is where the opening scene in The Goonies is shot, where Jacob chats up Bella in Twilight. Just the spot for Finley’s fairytale glass box of a house to rise out of the edge of a Sitka spruce forest floor, just south of Cannon Beach.
Finley’s house is modernist: the glass, steel and 360-degree views of the building are in contrast to the usual wooden beach homes out here. Yet it is equally respectful of its environment. The roof is cut from the earth, elevated and covered in native vegetation: if you approach the house from the back it looks like a rectangular floating garden. From the inside the ocean is framed by the horizontal lines of the transparent walls; outside, the glass façade also lets the house blend into the landscape.
After growing up in the Midwest, Finley moved out to Oregon and fell in love with the coast. When he found a rare piece of land for sale nine years ago, he worked with Portland architects Bora to “maximise the amazing location and have a feeling of being outside”. Construction finished as his wife had their first child (now they have two, aged four and two). Finley co-founded online questionnaire service SurveyMonkey in 1999; he’s now sold the company and is mainly a stay-at-home dad, “trying to savour this time when the kids are young and actually want me in their lives”.
Privacy can be an issue for the family. “There’s an amazing feeling of openness and light, but at night it’s like a lantern and you can feel exposed,” he says. This is mitigated by keeping the bedrooms on ground level, slightly sunken into the land, so sleeping areas nestle cosily into the earth. The prize upstairs views are given over to the kitchen and living areas. “The kitchen has always been the focus of our family,” says Finley. “The kids play at the dining table while we hang out and cook. Even when we’re entertaining, everyone gathers here.”
Muted tones dominate every room, with sea, sky and spruce tones adding colour, be it bright greens or faded blues. Surfaces are natural: alabaster and marble illuminate the bathrooms, the dining table is 14ft of walnut with live edges, and grey and cream textiles layer the beds in wool and felt. “It feels calm and meditative,” Finley says, “though that’s changed as the kids have grown.” External materials are also organic, with local basalt stone in the garden, copper on the roof and durable wood finishes that can handle the salty air and intense exposure to the elements.
The busiest feature of the house is the ceiling. With so many echoey materials, it’s designed to absorb sound. Individual strips of oak were custom cut and aligned around the lights and speakers and over an acoustic scrim. The home also has a hi-tech brain: there’s a centralised computer system which means everything can be switched off at once, and all the blinds come down.
“It feels very isolated when you’re out here,” Finley says. “You can sit with the fire on and watch the storms, whales and fishing boats. The real star of this house is the outside.”
