Two days before Neil Matteucci and Norm Kalbfleisch put their longtime home outside of Portland on the market, they opened their doors to select admirers of enduring architecture: People who also live in a Northwest modern dwelling designed by the late Pietro Belluschi, Oregon’s most celebrated architect.
During Sunday’s two-hour reception, guests wandered past varieties of rare trillium plants growing on the wooded hillside before going inside to mingle among friends and preservationists under ceilings finished in clear vertical grain Douglas fir.
Although still winter, the living space, enclosed by glass walls to visually dissolve boundaries between inside and out, was warm and welcoming.
No one in the crowd needed to be reminded that Belluschi was masterful at making simple materials look elegant and he was able to instill warmth through, he said, “the judicious use of such intangibles as space, light, texture and color.”
On Tuesday, March 15,