Henry Landes House

posted by littlelittle on May 19, 2012

The Landes House is one of the more intriguing houses in Uptown Port Townsend. The two story house is set back from the street surrounded by a formal garden and features painted gables, elegant porches, and tall brick chimneys.

The house was built in 1871 by Colonel Henry Landes, who would become one of Port Townsend’s most prominent citizens. He served as a city councilman and a state senator and established the First National Bank of Port Townsend and directed the Port Townsend Southern Railroad. In 1888 Landes expanded the house rotating the house 90 degrees and relocating a second home and attaching the two. The second home added a living room, hallway, downstairs bath, as well as rooms on the second floor. A new kitchen was added once the two houses were joined together. Evidence of the original house can still be seen with exterior siding and a window in the hallway of the second floor interior.

Colonel Landes sold his home in 1905 and moved toSeattle. The home had several updates over the decades since Landes sold it and underwent a renovation in 1984. Beginning in 2009 Little & Little began an extended planned renovation to bring a heightened level of elegance back to this beautifully situated home. We rebuilt the double hung wood windows and removed a 1950’s era kitchen and restored a historical kitchen, including flooring, ceiling and cabinets.

Floating Home Arrives at Lake Union

posted by littlelittle on April 25, 2012

In early February the activity in the Portof Port Townsend picked up as Monroe House Movers prepared to move the 400,000 pound floating home built by Little & Little Construction. On February 7^th the home made it across the Larry Scott Trail, but the process was delayed overnight so the launch could be timed with an outgoing low tide. A crowed of nearly 100 people of all ages returned the following evening to watch Monroe House Movers use a crane truck and small tractors to winch and pull the home onto the tidal flats.

At 5 AM on February 9^th, Captain John Nesset, piloting the R/V Cascade, pulled while Captain Randy Charrier in the tug Ed Nelson pushed the floating home to its temporary dock at Point Hudson Marina. At the new location Little & Little, finished some interior detail work and the interior of the home was painted. Once all of the work was done it was a waiting game to get favorable weather for the trip to Lake Union.

At 5:30 AM on March 18^th, the home left Point Hudson pulled by the R/V Cascade and guided by Ed Nelson, and began a fourteen hour journey to Lake Union. A small crowd gathered to watch the home pass through the Ballard Locks.

Once the home arrived at its floating neighborhood on Lake Union, Aqua Dive Services took on the puzzle-like operation of moving the homes around to place the new floating home at its slip by the dock. All of the other homes then had to be returned to their locations. To get a sense of all of the work watch this time-lapse video.

Little & Little Construction has been involved with this floating home for ten months and it is delight to know that the family that owns it is now living in it. As with all of our projects, we worked with some tremendous partners. Moving a floating home was new to us, though, and we were in good hands every inch of the way on land and on sea.

Made in America

posted by littlelittle on March 1, 2012

Diane Sawyer and David Muir did an ABC World News feature about a house built in Bozeman, MT that was 100 percent made inAmerica. If you have not watched the video, you can see it here. The World News segment became so popular that, if you do a Google search for “Made inAmerica”, World News with Diane Sawyer will be the first link that is listed. From this site, you can watch a variety of videos about products that are made in America and find an extensive list of products manufactured in each state. Washington State has 19 manufacturers making a wide range of products including clothing, textiles, cabinets, flooring, sports gear, furniture, and more.

Back to the Bozeman home…the Made in America video claimed that if every builder used just five percent more Made in America materials, it would create 220,000 more jobs. That prompted us to find out how much of a Little & Little custom home is made in America. As an example, we used a Jefferson County Home that we built in 2011 and examined every item that went into it. We talked to our suppliers, and to their suppliers, and our trade partners (plumbers, electricians, etc.) to find out where the products that went into the house came from. We turned over every stone and, when the dust settled, we were pleased to learn that 89 percent of the Jefferson County Home was made in America.

There is a notable difference between the Bozeman home in the video and a Little & Little home. The Bozeman home was a Spec House, which means that the contractor builds the home with the intent to sell it upon completion. In that situation, the builder makes all of the decisions for product and material selection. Little & Little builds custom homes where the design and product selections are driven by customer tastes and preferences.

With that in mind, let’s take another look at our Jefferson County Home. The home was 89 percent Made in America with the customer making product selection based on taste and preference regardless of where the product was made. Deliberate choices of American made products, could have made the home 98 percent made in America without impacting the cost of the home. For example, American tile can substitute for Italian tile for the same price and Hardiplank siding, or locally milled cedar, could replace Canadian cedar for a comparable price. Additional guidance in product selection could have brought the Jefferson County Home to 100 percent Made in America for only one or two percent above the budget.

In the past, we would talk about aesthetics, durability, and cost with our customers, and where a product was made was not a factor in our decision making process. Now, we are excited to offer our customers the option to construct a home entirely with products and materials Made in America.

Floating Home Launched

posted by littlelittle on February 18, 2012

The Floating Home is resting in a temporary location in Port Townsend’s Point Hudson Marina. You can follow the story of the launch through the stories that appeared in the Peninsula Daily news and Port Townsend Leader. Anticipation built as we prepared to launch. The process halted overnight and resumed the next afternoon. It arrived at Point Hudson early in the morning of February 9th. Click one of the links to read the article and browse the Lake Union Floating Home page to see a photographic timeline of the construction including new photos.

The home will remain at Point Hudson for approximately another week as some interior work is completed including painting and built in furniture. Once the work is complete, and the weather cooperates, the home will be transported to Lake Union in Seattle. Once on site utilities will be connected and the home will be balanced.

Jeff Chew from the Peninsula Daily News produced this video about the launch of the home.

Judge Ralston House

posted by littlelittle on February 3, 2012

The beautiful Victorian Judge Ralston House on Morgan Hill in Port Townsend was built in 1890 as a farmhouse with outbuildings. Judge John Ralston purchased it shortly after it was built and moved his family to the country home to raise goats. The original house contained two parlors, a dining room, and a kitchen on the first floor and four bedrooms on the second floor. In 1905 the family expanded the house with two major additions. A kitchen wing, sun porch, and pantry were added to the first floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom added on the second floor. Later renovations included relocating the kitchen to the site of the pantry and converting a small second floor bedroom into a second bathroom.

Little & Little Construction became involved with the Judge Ralston House when we built a carriage house to look as a historical match to the house. When the house was sold the new owners embraced the history of the home and wanted to preserve it as a piece of Port Townsend history. To maintain the historical integrity of the home accurate replicas were made including custom light fixtures, doors and windows, custom molding and woodwork. The end result is a home that is well suited to its era, yet conveniently and fashionably tailored for modern living.

Pink House

posted by littlelittle on January 19, 2012

The Charles Pink House stands proud and elegant, on the corner of Harrison and Lawrence, and is a prized piece of Port Townsend’s Uptown National Historic District, but it came perilously close to being demolished. The house was built by Horace Tucker in 1868 and purchased by Charles Pink in 1874 and it remained in the Pink family until 1966. From 1966, the home passed through a succession of owners until it was purchased by the City ofPort Townsendin 1981. The City planned to relocate the house so the historic Carnegie Library next door could be expanded. After years of debate, the City decided to keep the house in place if they could find a tenant willing to renovate the house. They could not find an interested party since the house had been neglected for years and was in total disrepair. The likely fate for the Pink House was demolition.

In 1993, Bob Little stepped forward and made the City and offer: lease him the ground for twenty five years and he would restore it and lease it to commercial tenants. It took months to work through red tape before Little & Little Construction could begin work. Little & Little began by shoring up the structure, then gutted it, put in new plumbing, rewired the building, and put up new walls. Architectural details were discovered that had been lost in remodels over the past one hundred years. Little & Little brought the old fireplace back to life and discovered beautiful old archways and plaster details. Victorian bays added in the late 1880s were left in place, but the Art and Crafts style porch – added in one of the numerous remodels through the years – was eliminated. Using old photos and the Rothschild House (also built by Horace Tucker) as a pattern, the porch was restored, with the porch railings painstakingly reproduced.

The Pink House was restored to meet both Washington State Archaeological and Department of Interior Guidelines. The Jefferson County Historical Society awarded this joint public-private partnership the Mary Johnson Preservation Award for contributing to the architectural heritage of the Port Townsend Area. The Pink House is special to Port Townsend because of its late Greek Revival architectural style and it is one of the few houses built in the 1860s that survives in Washington.

Living Roof

posted by littlelittle on January 5, 2012

Little & Little Construction built a Northwest Modern home that consists almost entirely of four elements; stone, glass, copper, and bamboo. Another unique feature is a vegetated rooftop cover installed over a waterproof membrane, known as a green roof. This roof can retain sixty to one hundred percent of incoming rainfall which helps protect the delicate bluff top setting where the house is situated.

The green roof was installed by Xero Flor. Xero Flor is the same company that installed a ten acre green roof at the Ford Motor Company Dearborn Truck Plant which is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest living roof in the world. Xero Flor green roofs consist of sedum, moss, and native perennial vegetation on a flexible textile carrier. Xero Flor pre-vegitatived mats are grown at regional farms across the country to ensure regionally adapted plant communities. The mats are rolled up and installed just like sod.

Xero Flor featured Little & Little’s Northwest Modern home on their website to showcase how a vegetated rooftop can be used on varying roof slopes and unique shapes.

You can see many examples of green roofs at the National Geographic’s Green Roof Photo Gallery.

Floating Home Featured in The Seattle Times

posted by littlelittle on December 28, 2011

The Floating Home being constructed by Little & Little in the Port of Port Townsend Shipyard was featured on the front page of the Real Estate section of the Christmas Sunday edition of The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times ran the original story by Jeff Chew and added additional photographs by Greg Gilbert. The Seattle PI also ran the story online with additional photographs by Debra Swanson.

Jefferson County Historical Society

posted by littlelittle on December 20, 2011

In November Little & Little completed construction of the Jefferson Country Historical Society (JCHS) Research Center expansion. JCHS has approximately 500,000 archives, more than 20,000 photographs and 15,000 artifacts and had outgrown the research center building that they moved into in 2003. The ground breaking for the new facility was on February 26, 2011 and final inspection of the completed building was November 15, 2011. The new building has plenty of space to house the historical archives and has proper environmental controls to ensure long term preservation.

To learn more about the project and view a photographic timeline on the JCHS website click here.

Floating Home in Port Townsend

posted by littlelittle on December 16, 2011

Little & Little began a construction project in the Port of Port Townsend shipyard in May. Amongst the big beautiful ships such as the Leader IV, Rich Passage I, Big Kitty, and Muskrat, something seemed different about what Little & Little was doing. It was not a schooner or a shallop. It was not a yacht or a yawl. The unusual shape and all that concrete made it clear it was not something you usually see in the shipyard.

“What are you building?”

We were asked that question so many times that we hung a sign on site that announced “A Floating Home by Little & Little Construction”.  The floating home has taken a recognizable shape and we are now working on the interior details and finish carpentry. The home will be completed in January and towed to its new home on Lake Union.

Jeff Chew, from the Peninsula Daily News, wrote a great article about the floating home that you can read here.