In the dining room, a Frederick Hart Lucite sculpture glows against the night sky over Yachats.

Rumor had it this would be a house unlike any other on the Oregon coast.

And the rumors were right.

There are places all over this world where such a house might barely merit a second glance, but in the tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it-town of Yachats, a town of artists, innkeepers and locals who make their living from the sea, people just don't build houses like that.

At least they didn't — until Aggie and Dale Garell came to town and fell in love.

Their story begins like so many others. A couple come to the coast for a romantic getaway, fall for the rugged shoreline and pounding surf, and vow to some day make it home. End of story. Except that's where the Garells' tale takes a bold turn. Because just days after arriving, they not only looked at a piece of land, they bought it.

Perhaps no one was more surprised than the Garells.

"We had no thought of leaving LA," says Aggie, retired director of volunteer services with Cedars Sinai Medical Center. "We had no thought of building a house or buying a second home. It was not in our financial plans, not even in our dreams."

But when they stood on that piece of land looking over the ocean, Aggie says, "It was like coming home."

A custom-made tansu fits puzzle-like beneath the stairs to the second floor. The work was a collaboration between contractor Paul LaMont and Corvallis Cabinet and Supply, with hardware by Portland craftsman Daniel Chisler. The entry adjacent to the tansu features random-cut, jade-colored slate.
Sliding-glass doors in the dining room open the house to the interior courtyard, where a Japanese-style engawa (pronounced en-gah-wa) frames a tranquil pond, and beyond, a 30-foot waterfall tumbles from above. The maple dining table, custom-made by Vancouver, Wash., craftsman Chet Gardner, opens to seat 12.

To pass by the Garells' from the climbing neighborhood street, you might hardly pause. Wood and concrete with multiple decks and copper fascia, it's attractive though by no means overdone. But step inside the imposing teak front door and suddenly, framed in cedar and glass, the world outside stands in fine focus. From the front of the house, a wall of glass opens to views of the mighty Pacific; from the rear, to the tranquility of the courtyard pond, framed by the Japanese engawa — a wood-covered walkway — and beyond, the tumbling waterfall.

"We really have the best of both worlds," says Dale, a retired chairman of pediatrics at the University of Southern California. "Everywhere you look, it's a photo opportunity."

The pair didn't set out to build their dream house. Rather, they planned a second home, a place to escape the craziness of the city. But from the moment California architect David Hertz and Newport contractor Paul C. LaMont raised scaffolding to better check out the view, it became clear this quarter-acre lot rated far more than your casual beach cottage.

From the start, Hertz took his design cues from the environment:

"I was inspired by dealing with the extreme weather conditions, the concept of 140-mile-per-hour horizontal rain. I started with the idea of thinking about the winds and where the winds were coming off the ocean. Instead of creating a square building, the idea of creating more of a C-shaped building to create an internal courtyard. The idea was, even from inside the courtyard, you could see through the house and to the mountains, the ocean view, even though you were behind the building. And also to provide an area where you could still have doors that could be open, but be protected from wind and rain coming off the ocean."

They broke ground June 15, 1999. Construction was completed in December 2000.

Hertz describes the 4,000-square-foot house as contemporary Japanese, yet for all its Asian influences, it is a house clearly born of the Pacific Northwest. Exposed beams and ceiling are cedar, cabinets vertical-grain Douglas fir, countertops limestone and granite, and floors a contrast of polished bamboo and random-cut jade slate. Beyond the glass, copper scuppers channel the ubiquitous coastal rain into a design feature all its own.

Says Hertz, "I thought, if it's going to rain so much, why hide the whole process of drainage?"

	Architect David Hertz designed the aggregate walls, a blend of local river rock and concrete, to emulate the natural layering of the earth. Outside, a 30-foot waterfall, designed by landscape designer Scott Printz, tumbles from above. Though it's manmade, visitors often assume it's a natural asset.

But it is the interior walls, nearly 300 cubic yards of poured concrete and aggregate rock, that lend the home a quality distinctly Oregon. For Aggie, it was a design element taken largely on faith.

"One of the first times we met," she says, "Paul said, 'We need to take a ride.' He stops at the wayside and we're walking. I said, 'Why did you bring us to see the restrooms?' He said, 'This (aggregate) is what the outhouses are made of.' I said, 'This is what you want to put in my house?' He said, 'Yes, this is what it's going to look like.' After that, I had to trust."

And so did LaMont — in his own ability.

"There are not many contractors who would do it," he says. "The potential for making something really ugly is very high."

It is to LaMont's credit that the walls, at once polished and rough, have become the single most defining feature within the house — though by far not the biggest challenge. That would go to the 14-foot sliding-glass doors.

"To make a perfect seal, 14 feet of those doors had to be perfectly flat," LaMont explains. "We have what's called the firehose test here. Anything that's installed has to be able to withstand 100-mile-per-hour winds with an inch of driving rain. You could install the doors in California and have it off an eighth of an inch and not worry about it. But here, with even one-thirty-second-of-an-inch gap, water would come flooding in. I had many sleepless nights."

LaMont also worried that with so much glass and concrete the house might feel cold, even industrial. "Yet," he says, "when they got their furniture and artwork in, it was amazing to me." What they didn't already own, Aggie sought out in their travels. While in Seattle with Dale for a conference, she spotted the perfect pair of chairs at Elliott Bay Antiques. When she learned the shop would close before Dale was free, she arranged for the shop owners to place the chairs in the store window. The 19th-century bamboo armchairs are now the central furnishings in the sitting room.

What Aggie couldn't track down in her travels, the couple had made — using almost exclusively local craftspeople. Woodworker Chet Gardner of Vancouver, Wash., crafted the maple dining table that opens from cozy seating for six to generous seating for 12; chairs and the kitchen barstools were made to match. (Using local craftsmen paid off in unexpected ways: When the barstools persistently creaked, Gardner met the pair in a local parking lot and silenced the offending sound in his van.) Even the guestroom bed linens have local origins: They're handcrafted by Waldport seamstress Gene Hunt.

Dale and Aggie Garell take a moment's rest in the kitchen, which is furnished with commercial-grade appliances and generous countertops of honed granite. Two oversize panes of glass offer unobstructed views of the ocean.

The couple's art comes from all over the world. Pieces include a watercolor on silk by Chinese artist Henry Wo Yue-kee, above the fireplace, and a pair of rare antique copper-and-bronze temple chimes, in the dining room.

But in this house, what's outside is equally as important as what's in, and no story about the Garell house would be complete without a nod to landscape designer Scott Printz, owner of Oregon Coast Gardens.

When Dale first saw Printz's plans, he says, "I cried. He had really captured the essence of building upon this unique house. He enriched the house and made it what it is."

It fell to Printz to landscape not only the uneven, steep terrain around the house, but also to finish some 1,000 square feet of outdoor living space. He designed the waterfall, so fitting that guests assume it's an ages-old natural feature of the site, as well the courtyard pond, complete with stepping stones that allow one, as Dale says, "to walk on water."

Although the project was not without its tense moments — LaMont describes the 1 1/2-year working relationship as intense as most marriages — it ended with all the principals not only talking to one another but even partying in celebration of a job well done.

Says Dale, "I don't think the house would have been the same if the chemistry wasn't there. We kind of walk around and pinch ourselves to be sure we are here and this is our place. It is in many ways our dream come true."