Design Build — Magnolia, Seattle
Building in
We've built in Magnolia long enough to know that the neighborhood's best feature — the views — is also its biggest engineering challenge. Getting a home to perform structurally on a Magnolia slope while opening it up to Elliott Bay takes experience that only comes from having done it before.
Magnolia lots vary enormously. The bluff-top properties north of Magnolia Boulevard have loose glacial soils that require engineered foundations and careful drainage planning. The flatter streets east of 28th Ave W are more straightforward but face tighter setbacks and, increasingly, short-plat complications. We've navigated both. Our Magnolia Industrial Modern project — which drew its inspiration from the shipping containers visible from the home's view deck — required a cantilevered structural system to capture the sightlines the clients wanted without compromising the building envelope.
Magnolia's permitting environment is familiar to us. The neighborhood sits within several view protection overlays, and any project that adds height or bulk needs to be evaluated against those rules early — not after design is complete. We factor this in from the first conversation, which is one reason our projects here tend to move through the City of Seattle's permit process faster than average.
The work we've done in Magnolia includes new custom homes, full whole-home remodels, and mid-century renovations. The Magnolia Mid-Century Remodel involved preserving the original rooflines and massing while completely rebuilding the interior — new kitchen, new primary suite, updated mechanical and electrical throughout — without disrupting what made the house worth keeping. That kind of surgical renovation is harder than it looks.
On Magnolia jobs with significant slope work, we always bring in a soils report before we commit to a foundation type. It's an extra step that saves significant cost and schedule risk down the line. A few of our competitors skip it to win the bid — we don't.
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