Secrecy and privacy. Hiding in plain sight. These are themes Mike Mora of Heliotrope Architects toyed with while drawing up the designs for this Portage Bay residence, a 2,500-square-foot home for a bachelor that replaced an existing structure. “The client is a very private person,” explains Mora, “and, because the house is tucked behind the properties running along the street, it’s not visible, except on the water side.”
Located in Seattle, the loftlike fortress sits absurdly close to Portage Bay—in fact, it’s so near the water’s edge, city codes would have prevented the residence from being built had there not previously been construction on the site. “The house could be mistaken for some industrial marine building, the kind you find throughout the city’s waterfronts,” Mora says. “We wanted it to convey similar qualities, because our client has boats and planes—but they’re work boats and work planes, not luxury machines.”
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