A Seattle Couple’s Playful Home Honors the Eccentric Vision of Its Original Architect

There are two types of people in this world: those who see a listing for a decaying 1,400-square-foot home built in 1954 and grimace, and those who make a viewing appointment. "We were looking for a new place and I thought, This one looks weird and ugly—let’s go see it," says artist Adelaide Blair, who, along with her software developer husband, Darin McAdams, renovated a Seattle home built by the late architect Robert Reichert, known for his expressive modernism, as a live/work space for himself and his mother, Tillie.

The couple worked with architect Stefan Hampden, a principal at Cast Architecture, to restore the historic, shed-roofed residence, using Reichert’s exuberant, avant-garde sensibilities as their guide. It was no easy task: Behind the baby-blue siding installed by a previous owner, Reichert’s original plywood-stucco construction was rotting. With a down-to-the-studs rebuild on their hands, the team used Reichert’s sketches, period photographs, and advice from local historian Jeffrey Murdock to create a functional home within the original plan.

In true Reichert style, Hampden took liberties to develop the more idiosyncratic elements of the design, retooling the entrance to include a courtyard behind a rebuilt Alexander Calder–inspired steel gate; introducing Mondrian-style shelving in the dining room for the couple’s game collection; and re-creating the original, southern exterior graphics—or "shadow paintings," as Reichert called them—while extending them around the facade.