A vacation cabin becomes a true home on an ‘idyllic’ island

On the San Juan Islands off northwest Washington state, land meets sea along rocky outcrops, and views stretch to Canada. Weather and water command the field, and the pace of life bends to meet them.

Existence there is one of self-reliance, where stoves are fed with hand-chopped firewood, dinner is often vegetables from the garden, and homes are secluded refuges, especially in winter.

“It’s one of the most idyllic places,” said Joe Herrin, an architect in Seattle who grew up boating around the San Juans. In 2002, he and his wife, Belinda Bail, bought a vacation home on the largest of them, Orcas Island, where their family now spends every summer and several weeks in the offseason.

Since then, Herrin, 58, and his firm, Heliotrope Architects, have designed more than 30 houses on the islands.

“We always try to create a unique sense of place with our projects,” he said in a recent video call. “When it’s a home in a stunning natural landscape like the San Juans, our goal is often to design in deference.”

Among those deferential projects is a 1,500-square-foot cabin on Orcas Island built for Traci and Lucas Donat.

The couple, who had a 30-year advertising career with their Los Angeles agency, Tiny Rebellion, were living in Southern California with a teen daughter when they bought the property, part of an apple orchard, in 2016. For decades, they had made family pilgrimages to Orcas Island, and they spent several years camping in a tent on their land before deciding to build.

“As a sailor, Joe is very tuned in to the natural rhythms that impact a home,” Lucas Donat, 62, said in a recent video call. The cabin offered little disturbance of the 7-acre, heavily forested site, which included a treeless clearing on the property’s highest point with views of the U-shape island’s inlet and the Olympic Mountains beyond.

Herrin designed a simple glass-and-wood structure that edges into the highland clearing, opening to the landscape at every opportunity. The cabin and much of its contents are made from local materials and assembled by island artisans.

“Because the clients were coming from another state, I wanted them to arrive at their home and instantly feel like they were in the Pacific Northwest,” Herrin said. “The material selection and being ruthless about working with a local team were all in service of that.”

The home was split into two structures organized around an old-growth Douglas fir. “We suggested having the primary bedroom be in a separate building, so they would always have to go outside to reach it,” Herrin said of his clients.

The approach created space for an exterior deck containing an outdoor dining area. Herrin designed the picnic table, which was built on nearby Obstruction Island out of cedar. “It was another little way of helping root the project in its place,” he said.

A local contractor assembled a team of fabricators and subcontractors from the San Juan Islands to do the finishing. For the floors, ceilings and cabinetry, the team used mixed-grain Douglas fir, all of which was sourced and milled on Orcas Island. The wood-frame windows and doors were built by a company 30 miles from Orcas. Interior handrails and fireplace surrounds were supplied by a local steel fabricator.

Bookshelves that were integrated into a seating nook, with storage drawers below and tongue-and-groove ceilings above, required close coordination between the cabinetmaker, the framer and the finish carpenters. Above the half-wall defining the seating area, sliding panels open to reveal a guest room, where a built-in desk of Douglas fir frames a view of the dominating fir tree just outside.

“The idea was, if we are going to make a small house, let’s make it a jewel box,” Lucas Donat said.

The family’s collection of green-and-white McCoy pottery inspired the sea-foam green kitchen island. Along with tiles from revived midcentury company Heath Ceramics, they create a homey, vintage feeling.

Outside, Herrin worked with Chuck and Marguerite Greening, landscape designers based on Orcas Island, to incorporate native plantings around the home and help restore the landscape after construction.

“Access to the site was very difficult, so we had to put in a temporary road and then peel it all back afterward,” Herrin said. “Construction required a wound to be made, and it needed to be healed.” Even so, not a single tree was removed from the site because of construction.

The Donats became so enamored of the cabin that they made it their full-time residence. With their daughter off to college, their primary home felt empty.

“We had a life moment where we fantasized about downsizing and living simply, so we did it,” said Lucas Donat, who is now chief marketing officer of Constellation, a New York software company.

The house will function at net-zero energy when a photovoltaic panel array is installed on the roof. And it has been prepared to withstand increasingly common smoke pollution in the summer forest fire season with an energy-recuperating fan with HEPA filters.

The Donats are slowly acclimating to island life, with its ever-changing weather and inconvenient travel.

“Living here has taught me a level of surrender and to embrace quiet time,” Lucas Donat said. “It’s very different from how we lived previously, but I love that.”