Just out., May 16, 2003, Page 17, Image 17

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This tall, 44-year-old gay man
is a sought-after designer. His
luxury houses have appeared in
several national magazines— including the
current issue of Beautiful Homes, published by
Better Homes & Gardens — and have won an
envious number of professional awards. And
he helped save a significant piece of O regon’s
architectural history (see sidebar).
All the while, his motivation remains rooted
in an intimate understanding of the people who
will inhabit his creations.
S
chnell grew up on a large cattle ranch in
rural North Dakota. He always wanted to
design houses and knew a college diploma
would be his ticket out of the prairie life that he
hated. When he completed his degree in archi­
tecture at North Dakota State University, he
quickly accepted a friend’s invitation to move
from icy Fargo to balmy San Diego.
But that was 1982, and an economic reces­
sion made his job search difficult. He eventual­
ly secured a position designing furniture for a
manufacturer of modular office partition sys­
tems, a craft in which he had no experience.
“1 thought it would be a challenge, and it
was,” Schnell says. “1 had to learn everything
about plastic lumber, fabrics, metals and all the
parts and pieces that would be going into this,
and I had to design how it would be hung off
the walls.”
He picked up a few design jobs on the side,
but the challenge of his day job continued to
fade. The time had come to focus full time on his
original passion of residential architecture. So he
headed to Portland in December 1989, lured by
weather that he hoped would pacify the allergies
he acquired to San Diego’s air pollution.
F
or the past six years, Schnell has been on the
staff of Alan Mascord Design Associates in
Northwest Portland, where he prepares the
majority of custom home designs and a large
number of the stock plans. Custom homes are
usually necessary on properties of unusual size or
shape, and they typically range in size from
2,000 to 8,000 square feet. At any given time,
Schnell juggles a dozen projects in various stages
of design, each with unique requirements.
“Often I feel like I’m designing houses for
people’s stuff and not people,” he observes, cit­
ing homeowners’ growing demand for space to
store cars, boats and motorcycles. “Garages are
the hardest thing because I want to disguise and
downplay them as much as possible, which is
difficult to do when the mass is sometimes equal
to the rest of the house.”
Inside the home, natural light is this arc hi-,
tect’s central design element. “Living here in
Oregon, 1 know how dark and dreary the winters
can be. So, if the sun ever does come out in the
winter, I want it to come into the house,”
Schnell notes.
Other recent trends among new home
builders include multiple offices, greater consid­
eration for resale value and open flcxir plans.
Schnell encourages smaller bedrixims and larger
common areas in order to bring householders
together. On the other hand, he avoids large-
volume, two-story spaces that not only are out of
human scale but also can lead to sound and pri­
vacy issues. And for same-sex couples without
children, pets often become a more important
design consideration.
S
chnell sees himself more as an interpreter of
ideas than a dictator of design, and his flu­
ency in translating needs-and-wants into bricks-
and-mortar is evident in the numerous awards
he received at last year’s Northwest Natural
Street of Dreams luxury home show.
PHOTO BY MAR TV DAVIS
C
alm and quiet Portland architect
Eric Schnell is a screaming success.
H ome
W ork
In rainy gray Oregon,
an award-winning architect
sheds light on practical residential
design by T im oth y K ra u se
His four-bedroom Montauk House, which
sold even before it was open to the public, won
six Professional Choice Awards judged by
national experts in home design, construction
and interior design. Among his accolades were
Best of Show, Best Architectural Design and
Best Use of Technology.
“This was quite a feat for a house that was
the least expensive home in the show— by
almost half of the two most expensive homes in
the show,” he says.
Schnell is even more excited about the
challenges he faced in designing his innovative
Architect Eric Schnell (right, with partner Judge Kemp) designed his Northeast Alberta house,
2003 entry, which sks on a sloping lot that
which will be featured in a publication by Better Homes & Qardens
faces north.
“This year’s house is very contemporary. I’m
curious how people are going to react to it,”
Schnell says. “If the economy were better, and
there were no threats of terrorism or war, I think
people would be more open to taking risks. Like
in the ’50s after World War II, when things
seemed to be good and there was lots of build­
ing going on. The design of cars, the design of
houses, furniture— we made huge leaps, but 1
think we’ve regressed since then.”
As a gay man, Schnell says he draws on a
different sensibility to make clients feel com­
fortable with all the choices they must make.
“Being gay, we have a sixth sense about cer­
tain things that really helps me in my profes­
sion. I’m not tied down to all of the stereotypi­
cal role-playing of the straight male,” he
explains. “A lot of my clients are women, and I
think they can relate to me a little bit more
because I am gay. Whether they know it or not
is not important, but I think I give them a sense
of confidence that they may or may not have in
a straight male.” J H
Features Editor TIMOTHY KRAUSE can be reached
at tim@justout.com.
Turn-of-the-20th-century East Coast beach houses inspired the look of this award-winning Lake
Oswego residence designed by Schnell
His O ld H ouse
A
s soft-spoken as he is, Eric Schnell can
make his voice heard when he wants to.
And such was the case when he spoke up to save
the Gordon House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home
that was nearly lost to the wrecking ball.
Built in 1963, it was one of the last of the leg­
endary architect’s “Usonian” homes to be built and
was the only house he designed in Oregon. When
its original owners passed away, the structure and
its 22 acres were sold in 2000 to a couple who were
planning to demolish the landmark to make way
for construction. Schnell, contacted by the builder
to design the new home, immediately recognized
the lot as the location of the historical house
designed by one of his professional role models.
“I told them that I was going to stop them,”
Schnell says, “and I contacted everybody I could
possibly think of that would be interested in sav­
ing this house."
His phone soon started ringing, and
Schnell’s one-man effort gained a momentum of
its own. With only hours to spare before a demo­
lition permit was issued, a deal was struck with
the national Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy,
Schnell helped save the Gordon House, the only home Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oregon
which assumed ownership of the stmcture and
moved it tiff the property.
The Gordon House has been rebuilt on the
site of the Oregon Garden in Silverton and,
thanks in no small part to Schnell, is now open
to the public. JH