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Health & Fitness

We're in Love... With Our Bassetti-designed Mercer Island Abode

One couple with four kids and two dogs embarking on a Mercer Island mid-century renovation.

We’re in love. With each other, obviously. With our talented and wonderful daughters, of course. And with two slightly insane furry four-legged children. But another love has entered our life.

At last (cue Etta James), our love has come along. After stops and starts too numerous and depressing to list here, we have found ‘The One’. One Sunday, after a grueling game of Scrabble and a few beers on the porch of the historic on Mercer Island, we decided to check out an open house, a house with a price higher than the ceiling of our budget. Just for kicks and giggles. A little fun. See how the other half lives, you know?

The house was tucked at the top of a charming private drive, even more charming in early May when the sun is shining through the green leaves and trees that form a canopy over the lane. When we reached the top, the house didn’t look like much… A ranch house that are a dime a dozen around here. 

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As we pulled up to the house, I saw through one of the front windows, a wall that was papered with Peanuts...yes, Peanuts. As in Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Sally and Lucy.  Strange, I know. My first thought should have been, “that’s got to be the first thing to go.”  Instead, it had me at ‘Hello.’ I have a Peanuts thing. What can I say?

Turns out I didn’t need Snoopy to convince me. The curved brick wall at the entrance that continues into the house and becomes the fireplace. The cedar panels of the ceiling in the living and bedrooms. The solid beams running through the house and out to the porch.  And the land. Oh my, the half-acre of land that backs up to a green belt with a gully. A private park of one’s own. 

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And as if that weren’t enough, the architect is a well-known Seattle mid-century architect, Fred Bassetti. A student of Eichler-esque post and beam lines and indoor/outdoor living, Bassetti designed a home filled with light and clean lines. Fred Bassetti designed our new home, 47 years ago. 

The fact that we hadn't yet sold our current house didn't deter us. Let’s just say we walked out of there determined to beg, borrow or steal to get that house, emphasis on the borrow part, (thanks to mortgage broker extraordinaire Anne G Litwak). Begging and stealing aren’t yet part of the bargain but, given the state of the house, may be our next move. More on that to come.

(Visit Mid-Century Modern Love blog on-line at www.midcenturymodernlove.com to subscribe and see more.)

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