With its fabled history, the Boomerang House gets a new chapter in the latest of a series of renovations dating back to the 1950s.
Nicknamed the “Boomerang House” because of its unique angular shape, the 1947 home was rumored to be a Frank Lloyd Wright design. And it sounds like an amazing story: It’s the late 1940s, and an actress and her husband ask their friend to design their new home outside Portland, Oregon. The friend sketches something for the couple on a napkin that’s quintessentially modern. Construction begins on the hill-nestled home … and another Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece is born.
Real estate agents shared this story, which dates back to the 1950s, according to research conducted by historian Tanya Lyn March for the blog, “History Treasured & Sometimes Endangered,” in 2015.
However, it’s only half true. The home was, indeed, built by Margaretta Ramsey, an actress with numerous film, stage and television credits, and her husband, Walter, a career Navy officer. But there’s no proof that Frank Lloyd Wright was involved in the design, although his work likely inspired the home’s unknown designer.
Known as the “Boomerang House” due to its unique angular shape, the two-story 1947 home epitomizes the Frank Lloyd Wright quote, “No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together, each the happier for the other.”
Featuring an abundance of windows, a muted color palette and a flat roof, the home rests serenely in its stunning, half-acre surroundings.
“The home sits deep in the forest … high above Portland,” says Timothy Schouten, principal with Giulietti/Schouten/Weber Architects, the firm behind the home’s latest renovation. “The clients loved that it felt as if it was their modern home in the wild—but literally five minutes from downtown.”
The Boomerang House: A Work in Progress
The home has changed hands multiple times in the past 75 years and has gone through multiple renovations, starting in the late 1950s.
“We have partial plans from the 1959 remodel, and they show a basement bath added, main-floor bath added, [primary bedroom] mahogany closet with built-in shelves, bathroom rounded-counter details, basement family room built-in storage cabinets and door trim details,” Timothy shares. “These feature super-minimal, flush-style mahogany doors, along with the base, trim and accent walls made of complete mahogany paneling, mostly in the baths and bedrooms.”
Many of those aspects can still be found in the home, as can the work done to the Boomerang house in the 1980s.
“We left the 1980s primary bedroom addition as is,” Timothy explains. “It expanded the original, modest-sized primary bedroom out into the rear yard due to site constraints (hillside and side setbacks to the north). The original-design primary bedroom maintained a true boomerang shape for the house and offered full living room views out to the forest, rather than partial, screened views of the primary bedroom. The new one essentially cut off the continuous rear deck into a small, basic square.”
When the Giulietti/Schouten/Weber Architects firm was brought in to update the home, one area it planned to tackle was the primary bedroom, but that project was shelved when the clients decided to sell the house.
“Unfortunately, the clients moved closer to their work locations, and we were not able to start on phase 2, which involved removing the primary bedroom addition … to open up the yard to the original ‘boomerang’ plan and adding a new, second-level primary suite,” Timothy says.
True to Form
Even without the primary bedroom update, the work completed by Giulietti/Schouten/Weber Architects and its collaborators beautifully honors the Boomerang house’s origins while making it practical for a 21st-century family.
Walls were removed to open the kitchen to the living and dining room. A new garage in Mid Century Modern style was linked to the home via the construction of a covered walkway. The vertical tongue-and-groove exterior cedar siding and eaves were matched and replaced.
The new walkway is a standout feature for Timothy because of all it adds to the home: “It really helps define the entertaining terrace while also screening from guest parking,” he says. “I love how the cedar in both the screen wall and canopy ceiling warm up the walk to the entry.”
With quite a bit of work occurring outside, including the garage and entertaining space, care was taken to ensure the natural surroundings were respected.
“Forest Park primarily comprises large Douglas firs, red cedars and ferns,” Timothy says. “The goal was to bring new life to the new ‘outdoor living area’ via simple clean lines, repairing the deteriorating retaining wall, screening the parking from the terrace and keeping the forest natural around the house—with the exception of the beautiful red maple tree at the entry, where retaining walls were formed around the tree during the winter. We were all worried it wouldn’t survive the remodel/addition.”
Taking care of the exterior was a major aim of the project, which won the silver 2021 Master Design Award in the Whole-House Remodel category.
“The clients loved the original house, and we didn’t feel the need to change what we also loved about the house,” Timothy explains. “Our strategy was just to improve the plan in the interior and improve the livability of the outside spaces so it could be used year-round.”
Those improvements will be enjoyed by its new homeowners, who will be writing the next chapter in this home’s story.
Less Is More
Embrace the simplicity of the Mid Century Modern aesthetic in your renovation project.
Timothy Schouten, principal with Giulietti/Schouten/Weber Architects, easily lists his favorite things about mid-century design: the clean, simple horizontal lines on the exterior, the simple palette of materials and the generous walls of glass for day lighting contrasting with the unadorned wall planes. His firm paid special attention to these elements when renovating the Boomerang House.
“Keeping the same profile of materials is most important,” he shares. “Over time, as the house has been painted, re-painted, etc.—but replacing the vertical wood siding and thin, horizontal eaves—the long horizontal walls of glass keep this MCM looking timeless.”
When describing the project, a few themes repeat—clean, simple, timeless—that can be “mantras” for anyone taking on a Mid Century Modern renovation.
“My best advice would be: ‘Less is more’ in MCM renovations, along with trying to keep a restrained color palette and a restrained plan that allows flexibility to move furniture around and families to grow into the spaces,” Timothy advises.
For more Oregon MCM inspiration, read on for Tour a Unique Mid Century Renovation in Oregon. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more Atomic Ranch articles and ideas!
