Our Pacific City Beach Home & How It Came To Be for an Article in the "Coastal Style"

Rick & Holly Nelson
35785 Sunset Drive
Pacific City, Oregon 97135

Architect: Dennis Mitchel Thompson, Lake Oswego, Oregon
Builder: Johnson & Co., Pacific City, Oregon

We have had a longtime love of Pacific City. We came to work here as realtors in 1999 and found the roundtrip to Sheridan/McMinnville too much on a 7-day-a-week basis. So, we began to plan for a fulltime residence here.

We had two lots listed on Sunset Drive. In 2003 we pursued the purchase of those lots after long hours of identifying what our view at 35 feet height would be. We knew we would have some river, ocean and Haystack Rock views, but we didn’t know how good it would really be.

The property was just what we had dreamed of. A future home on Sunset Drive, a location we had looked at since our 1990 marriage. It also brought a special meaning to Rick as his grandfather, Carl Hultenberg, had owned the 138 acres now known as the Bob Straub State Park. He sold it to the state in 1961 for $10,000. Oh, to have had a scrap of that parcel today!

My grandparents were Dutch immigrants and in the late 50s and early 60s I spent many a childhood day here fishing at Sandlake, shrimping at Pacific City, eating at the Hungry Harbor or the Woods Café, or stopping at the old Neskowin store on the original Hwy 101 so my grandpa could get a dried hearing fish to eat – head and all! This area reminded them more of home then anywhere else, and since my grandfather never returned to Holland, I know he held this as a place of special interest.

Rick & I had been penciling our ideas about a house since Christmas 2001. So, when we gave our ideas to architect Dennis Thompson, we got exactly what we asked for. Dennis dubbed our kitchen command central as it is the centrum of an 80 foot room, spanning from ocean side of the house, the “black & blue” room with black baby grand to the river side of the house.

The kitchen is our favorite place to be. Rick and I both like to cook and in past homes we have found ourselves kicking one or the other out of the way! This had to be a “two-butt” kitchen. Thus, the main working area with granite counter tops became 20 feet long and extended into a butler’s pantry. It features 2 dishwashers, a 6 burner with bbq grill Viking range, SubZero refrig, wine refrigerator, warming oven, convection/microwave, one main sink and two additional prep stations. Since we entertain almost 2 or 3 times a week, but kitchen and working areas are greatly used. If we aren’t cooking inside, most locals and friends will find us in a picnic, firepit, camp area affectionately known as “Gilligan’s Island.” Here we also have many a gathering centered around food – local fish, crab, clams or the day’s catch cooked outdoors the same afternoon. Rarely you find us spending a mealtime with just the two of us!

The 80-foot room spans to the east side of the house and is the family room open to the kitchen overlooking the Nestucca River.

The inverted living plan was a must to capture all these spectacular views. But Thompson was tasked to keep the entry way from trailing in lefts and rights up the three floors in a narrow uninteresting way. You’ll see this accomplishment in the beautiful open 3 level entryway that visitors are initially greeted by. The entryway floor is blue/green slate with mosaic features and graces up to the first landing with cherry wood stairs topped by a waterwall feature, granite salmon and wrought iron ballisters.

The stairs bring you to the first landing on the second level where you get your first sight of the beautiful indoor swimming pool and hot tub with granite finish and Middle Eastern mosaics. The interior with its high ceilings is all cedar shake and lab cedar to match the exterior of the house. It’s kind of an inside but outside look inside affair! The swinging wooden door leads to an open tiled bath with shower for just simply water everywhere. And if in the mood, a steam bath was built in a small corner with a custom wooden-framed glass door closed with a simple door latch.

Once you’re done looking through the window to the swimming pool, you may enter the office, guest room suite and bath or Brandon’s bedroom and the OSU Beaver, Nestucca Bobcats, SF Giants Game Room. Yes, folks, this is it -- the orange and black room. History in abundance fills the room with memorabilia from the family’s favorite teams and the reasons why the colors are so important to them. I.e. Rick’s football career at OSU, Holly’s marching band career, Brandon’s Bobcat days, and sister Keri’s OSU hailing as well as season ticket holder to the Giants. Sister Alison backs up the team with a big cheer. And don’t forget Scott & Kelly who also attended our favorite alma mater! All of them love to play pool on the orange and gray/black felted pool table. The entertainment center cabinet is even topped with a black and orange piece of granite, a single slap left mind you, from the building of our new Reser Stadium!

If you’re too tired to take the hike to the third floor then ride the elevator designed in Hawaiian theme.

If you do take that final third floor hike, you’ll find youself walking up past copper salmon wall hangings hung on a dry-stack stone wall. Then you arrive to the “Great Big Room.” The ceilings are all cedar, the trusses and beams exposed and cross loom overhead and the seriously thought out lighting make you understand you have not arrived in a home that has been thought out.

The dining room greats you with an Italian antique buffet built into the wall, plumbed with copper sink and adorned with granite slap matching the kitchen, marble Doric columns purchased in London and bronze cherubs holding candles above the head of the dining room table hand made in Spain and purchased in San Francisco. Everything about his house is thought out for entertaining, cooking and enjoying food with family and friends. Holly even grows her own fresh lettuce and garden herbs that she and Rick cook with daily.

The upper level had a minimum of rooms required, but the last was the bedroom. The double entry doors to the master suite are arrived at by crossing over the cherry wood floor topped sky bridge. From the sky bridge you look out over the river and Porter Point and into the double glass doors welcoming you into the beautiful bedroom. The doors are topped with an 80 inch wide stained glass window of Cape Kiwanda and Haystack Rock.