A Shingle-Clad Home on the Oregon Coast Wraps Around a Cozy Courtyard

Since its completion in 2018, the Arch Cape House has become the center of Mark and Laurie Engberg’s universe—especially as they hunker down there during the pandemic rather than in Portland. At first, however, the couple were just looking for a weekend retreat and a place to take their new dog, Van Der Rohe (Vandy, for short).

After adopting the Rhodesian ridgeback labrador from a Portland shelter, the Engbergs realized that plane trips would be out of the question for a while; Vandy was too upset by the separation. "We said, ‘Let’s go to the beach,’" Mark recalls. They spent a long weekend in a rented beach house at Arch Cape, a tiny hamlet along the northern Oregon coast, "and fell in love with the place," returning every few months over the next five years.

Because Mark’s firm, Colab Architecture + Urban Design, both designs and develops homes and condos, it was easy for the Engbergs to imagine building their own beach house and future retirement spot. But there were two big challenges.

Arch Cape is in a tsunami evacuation area along the Cascadia subduction zone—predicted to bring one of the nation’s largest-ever earthquakes sometime in the coming decades. Yet that danger hasn’t impacted the popularity of oceanfront real estate: Arch Cape lots located west of busy U.S. Highway 101 were twice as expensive as those in Portland.

Then, you might say, the Engbergs got a reprieve from the governor. They discovered a unique development called Castle Rock Estates built in the 1980s by a group of investors that included Oregon’s then-governor, Victor Atiyeh. It was nestled into an otherwise forested hillside east of the highway and 85 feet above sea level.

The location, Laurie and Mark realized, was high enough to be safely away from tsunami waves and to take in panoramic Pacific views. It also wasn’t nearly as windy as the beachfront homes they’d rented. But the real kicker? A private walkway to the beach tunneled under Highway 101.

The couple’s three-bedroom house, clad in cedar shingles and redwood siding, looks out west to the ocean, but that’s not the only view. "We came to realize that views looking the other way, into the forest canopy—that view is as good as the Pacific view," Mark says. It’s a quieter setting that’s conducive for the architect and Laurie, a literature professor, to think creatively while digitally connecting with colleagues and students.