Into the Woods
The Northeast meets the Northwest in the forested mountains of central Oregon.
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ShareJune 1, 2008
With its 300 days of sunshine each year, world-class ski runs and golf courses, and rustic ambiance, the central Oregon city of Bend feels as far from Manhattan as a person can get. And that suits Brian Marlowe just fine."I’ve never been happier than I am here," says Marlowe, the former owner of a successful Manhattan cleaning and restoration business that helped refurbish Grand Central Station, the New York Public Library, and the American Museum of Natural History. He grew up on Fifth Avenue and previously lived in Manhattan’s Olympic Tower and in a waterfront Southampton estate. After selling his New York homes and sailing the Mediterranean for several years on a 150-foot yacht, he decided that he needed a change. "There comes a time while living on a boat when you either get a bigger one or you move back to land," says Marlowe.
Opting for life ashore, Marlowe combed the East Coast and looked as far afield as Costa Rica for property. He was planning a drive from Los Angeles to Whistler, British Columbia, when a friend, over lunch in a Malibu restaurant, suggested he stop in Bend along the way. "I didn’t know anything about the place. But our waiter overheard the conversation and mentioned that he used to live there. ‘It’s the new Aspen,’ he told us, and he was right. As soon as I arrived, I found the house I’d been looking for," says Marlowe, who moved to Bend in late 2005.
Situated on the golf course at the Broken Top Club, Marlowe’s dream house—an 8,200-square-foot, log-frame home with a separate 1,000-square-foot guesthouse—has stirring views of the Cascade Range and the solitary volcanic cone of nearby Mount Bachelor. Guests arrive here by way of a heated cobblestone driveway flanked by native ponderosa pine trees and lichen-covered lava boulders. Local landscape designer Gregg Miller, of Cascade Garden, accented the grounds with specimen plants, Swedish aspen, and weeping Canadian hemlock. "When Brian first saw the property, the landscaping was overgrown; not much thought had been put into it either," says Miller, who also added a stream that flows along a stretch of the property in cascades that spill into several small waterfalls and pools, including a koi pond.
Soon after purchasing the property, Marlowe enlisted the help of interior designer Sharon Henderson to update the two-story home, which was built in 1995. "We didn’t set out with any specific plan," says Henderson, who is a native of Bend. "But with Brian’s modern art collection and the home’s lodge-style architecture, it gradually evolved into a New York–meets-the-Northwest kind of look." In the four-bedroom main house, the entryway connects to an 80-foot-long gallery and a series of rooms, including a wood-paneled billiards room, a dining room, and a newly remodeled chef’s kitchen. At the opposite end of the home sits a media room.
But it is the great room—with its expanse of windows, exposed log trusses, and lofty cathedral ceiling made from pecan-colored alder wood—that is the home’s most dramatic feature. Dominating the space is a 28-foot-high stone fireplace, on which hangs Marlowe’s latest acquisition: a 1923 bronze bas-relief sculpture by Cubist artist Jacques Lipchitz. Here, where Marlowe enjoys entertaining guests as well as relaxing solo, Henderson refinished the plank alder floors to their original antique-distressed glow. She also replaced the large plate-glass windows with inch-thick, filtered glass to reduce the sun’s glare and create more subtle lighting. "Finding furnishings that were appropriate was tricky," says Henderson. "We needed oversize furniture to match the scale of the architecture as well as the site’s commanding views."
The same holds true in the adjacent dining area, which overlooks, through a network of floor-to-ceiling windows, the pool courtyard containing a life-size bronze human figure by Dutch-born artist Hanneke Beaumont. A heavy table made from 150-year-old reclaimed timbers and handcarved stone helps to anchor the space. The expansive feel is continued upstairs in the master suite, which is accessed by a spiral staircase and affords views of the nearby mountain peaks.
Between his frequent travels, Marlowe spends about seven months
out of the year at his mountain estate, where he throws small dinner parties
nearly every week and larger gatherings at least once a month. "I was able to
live my first life as a Manhattan businessman and my second life on a big boat,"
he says. "Now, my third life is in Bend. Some of my East Coast friends ask why I
bought a home here, and I tell them that I love the smell of sun on the pines in
the summer, as well as the wonderful fragrances of the other three seasons. I
love the way people here look you in the eye, say ‘good morning,’ and mean it.
It all comes down to three things: peace, quiet, serenity."
Sharon Henderson Interior Design Inc., 541.383.5006
Gregg Miller,
Cascade Garden, 541.948.2163
