You can’t really discuss the history of the Arlington Heights neighborhood without also talking about Washington Park—the former, after all, is wrapped on three sides by the latter. This goes back to 1871, when the burgeoning city of Portland decided it wanted said park. It paid homesteader Amos King $32,624 for 40.29 acres in Southwest. The land had limited road access and was wilderness: steeply sloped, crisscrossed with canyons and gullies, and filled in by forest, not to mention the occasional “roaming cougar.” The city dubbed it, imaginatively, City Park, and left it for years.
By 1887, the first facilities for the zoo were established, spurred on by a pharmacist who bought a grizzly bear for $75 and gifted it to the public for the “joy and benefit of children.” Next came landscaping, reservoirs, cable cars, and, in 1903, an advisory report from John Olmsted, son of Frederick Law Olmsted of NYC Central Park fame, recommending, among other things, a name change. In 1912, it became Washington Park.
Ten years later, the park gained more land, when Multnomah County deeded more than 160 acres that had previously been designated as a “poor farm,” which was really a sanatorium for people with “infectious disease and mental illness.” Scandal and lax oversight prompted the sanatorium’s closure, and that acreage eventually became the Hoyt Arboretum, Oregon Zoo, World Forestry Center, and (now closed) Portland Children’s Museum.
All of which is to say that the development of the Arlington Heights neighborhood, a small pocket of a couple hundred houses, is inexorably tied to Washington Park’s evolution. Driving to this particular house on SW Upper Cascade Drive (a single-track, winding road that curves up and up through the Arboretum and past trailhead markers) begets a dizzying moment of wonder: Are we in the park, or a neighborhood? Both, it turns out, as the road tops out onto a residential street filled in with about nine houses built between 1968 and 1988.
At the very end sits this one, originally designed by architect Marvin Witt in 1977. From the front, it looks unassuming enough, tucked behind a concrete landscaping wall and painted a striking black against its forest backdrop. Tall vertical slot windows are inserted into the front façade, a change made in a more recent remodel by architect Jeff Kovel, founder of Skylab Architecture, and builder Charlie Metcalf. Between the windows stands the original front door, carved by renowned wood sculptor and artist Leroy Setziol—just one of the many ways old and new now come together here.
The back of the house is all angles, another original detail kept from Witt’s design, and a feature that Kovel played with in the remodel, in addition to creating a more dramatic black-and-white palette (fitting for the firm that created the Yard building, home to Knot Springs, as well as the house made of triangles, among many others). Kovel started by instilling an open plan throughout the living spaces on the main floor, keeping the soaring ceilings, kinked walls with tall windows, skylights, and walls clad in cedar.
The new finishes include a cantilevered concrete kitchen island, an open staircase with post ends mitered in 45-degree angles, and dimensional tile in the new full bathroom on the main floor. These are juxtaposed alongside preserved elements, such as the parquet floors, now refinished and stained white. A new 1,500-square-foot Ipe deck extends the living outside, wrapping tree trunks and connecting the house with its park surroundings.
The lower level has two bedrooms, a family room with a fireplace, and access to a detached 315-square-foot bonus room tucked under the garage, perfect for a teen clubhouse, gym, or art studio. Up the staircase, there’s a third bedroom and the primary suite, the latter with a shower where all of the home’s design details, past and present, come together. There, Walker Zanger marble chevron tile covers walls and floor, while the home’s original beamed ceiling remains exposed overhead. Add a tall angled picture window, and it feels like you’re showering in the forest.
- Address: 3204 SW Upper Cascade Dr, Portland, OR 97205
- Size: 3,530 square feet/4 bedroom/3 bath
- List Date: 2/22/2024
- List Price: $2,295,000
- Listing Agent: Suzann Baricevic Murphy, Where, Inc.
Melissa Dalton is a freelance writer who has focused on Pacific Northwest design and lifestyle since 2008. She is based in Portland, Oregon. Contact Dalton here.
Editor’s Note: Portland Monthly’s “Property Watch” column takes a weekly look at an interesting home in Portland’s real estate market (with periodic ventures to the burbs and points beyond, for good measure). Got a home you think would work for this column? Get in touch at [email protected].
