Construction Diary: An Architect Relies on Memory to Rebuild His Childhood Home

Years after the house he grew up in burned down, Jes Paone returned to Concrete, Washington, and recreated it using only his recollections.

Sep 10, 2024 - 15:00

Construction Diary: An Architect Relies on Memory to Rebuild His Childhood Home

Years after the house he grew up in burned down, Jes Paone returned to Concrete, Washington, and recreated it using only his recollections.

Jes Paone had always planned to return to the quaint, gabled house in Concrete, Washington, where he grew up, but in 2016 it mysteriously burned down while no one was around. The Brooklyn architect decided to rebuild, in part to help his mother deal with the loss but also to create a retreat for his family of three that could eventually become their primary residence. Reference materials were scarce—there was only one photo, plans were nonexistent, and Jes hadn’t visited the site since leaving as a teen—so he relied solely on childhood memories to sketch out designs of the home, with a few updates.

After the Concrete, Washington, house where he grew up burned down, New York architect Jes Paone rebuilt it as a vacation home for himself and his family. With no original plans to work with, Jes relied on a few site cues but mostly his memory.
Photo: Eirik Johnson

For Jes, it was as much a chance to re-create a sentiment-filled space as it was to apply expertise he’d honed designing luxury apartments in New York for 20 years. From the outside, the new 1,900-square-foot house looks and feels as though it’s always been there, with roughly the same footprint, set in the same location. But inside, sleek finishes like marble counters combined with midcentury furnishings create the effect of a pared-back loft, bridging the architect’s East and West Coast worlds as well as his past and present.