By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone

A conversation with J. Michael Bogan of JM Bogan Remodeling and Benjamin and Courtenay Gebhardt of Blue Sound Construction.

This classic Tudor Revival home in Magnolia was given new life by Blue Sound Construction.

The cities of the Puget Sound are relatively young, but they boast an impressive array of classic early-twentiethcentury homes. From Victorian mansions to Modernist masterpieces, these houses speak to our region’s history and aesthetic sensibilities.

But all things age, and the remaining pockets of these old-timers need special care to keep on impressing. Thankfully, lovers of these homes are well-served by remodelers, contractors, and architects who’ve made renovation and restoration part of their trade.

It’s not easy preserving the original charm of an old house while adhering to modern code and meeting a client’s goals. I reached out to two companies with reputations for quality, JM Bogan Remodeling and Blue Sound Construction, to get a sense of how they navigate this tricky, three-way balancing act.

JM Bogan built this Modern Victorian home with architects Board & Vellum for clients passionate about 19th century design.

Learning From the Classics

Established in 1977, Fall City-based JM Bogan Remodeling takes a customercentric approach to residential and commercial projects. As a design-build company that integrates planning and construction from the start, their work runs the gamut of remodels, restorations, and custom work.

The company, now in its second generation, was founded by J. Michael Bogan over 46 years ago. Michael already had ample experience in residential remodeling when he began working in historic neighborhoods in Bellingham and Whatcom County, so restoration was a natural fit.

“I possessed a basic understanding of geometry [essential to the design of many older homes], a good work ethic, and a desire to learn,” Michael says. “There were Victorians and Craftsman Bungalows, log homes and barns. I fell in love with the craft and found opportunities to do some wonderful things.”

When it comes to style, Michael admires a wide range of old homes, but ultimately it’s about the client. “Whether the home is painted or stained, on Queen Anne Hill or the mountains, producing what the client wants is what matters most.” And it’s achieving their vision that Michael finds most satisfying.

For Blue Sound Construction, a Seattle-based construction company established in 2006, working with old homes was something they always knew they wanted to do. With a high level of technical knowledge and craft, they felt they could accomplish something “meaningful and profound.”

“We grew up admiring old homes’ charm, and trying to understand the source of that charm has been a lifelong personal passion,” says Co-Founder and Director Courtenay Gebhardt. This led the company to “research geometric proportions, preservation tactics, and the history of European craft organizations.”

When I ask Courtenay about her favorite styles, she mentions Tudors, Craftsman homes, Foursquares, and Mid-Century Moderns. But what she loves most isn’t any one type. It’s “working on respectful renovations that honor the home’s innate design language.”

“When architects are careful to maintain the proportions, regulating lines, and character of the original, there’s a sort of harmony that reverberates throughout both the home and its surroundings.”

A handsomely restored washroom in a Foursquare in Queen Anne, by Blue Sound Construction.

That Special Something

Restoring or renovating a classic home means bringing a high level of craftsmanship and skill to every facet of the project. But that’s just the starting point. Any company taking on this kind of work needs to bring something extra to the table if they want a result that hits the mark.

What sets a company like JM Bogan apart, says Michael, is the “experience that comes with being a multigenerational company.” That sense of passing the torch through the generations dovetails nicely with the work of classic home restoration.

“JM Bogan Co. is truly a family team. My own construction experience began in 1975 and my son Brandon grew up around construction in the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Together, we have the combined experience and knowledge our clients need—administration, trade skills, and execution.”

These assets are freely transferred to employees. “They learn trade skills and have opportunities to develop their craft. It has always been a part of our company culture to pass it on.” That means everyone brings a high level of expertise to each project.

Even when you have the talent and experience, there is no one way to work on restoration projects, and every home requires its own approach. As Michael puts it, “There is no one-size-fits-all handbook. Each project has its own specific requirements.”

Meeting them calls for a trained eye. “Sometimes the task is simple; sometimes it’s complex. At times discernment seems to come naturally, but it’s really a learned skill—like hitting a bullseye at 100 yards, it’s something you learn by doing.”

For Courtenay, going the extra mile means working with architects who understand classical design. “Because they’re trained in the aesthetic principles underlying a lot of historic buildings, they have a built-in understanding of what’s worth preserving and what new elements can achieve the same effect.”

In return, Blue Sound Construction offers a high level of skill, craft, and cost controls that allow them to implement specific designs and revise as needed. But what sets them apart, says Courtenay’s husband, Principal and Co-founder Benjamin, is their abiding appreciation for classic homes.

“We’re deeply sensitive to the charm of historic homes and want to do right by them. But we’re also realistic about pricing and happy to offer practical advice when the approach is collaborative. Clients who are clear about their values upfront will ultimately drive what we are able to do for them.”

Evergreen Features and Seismic Shifts

“We think preservation and beauty are probably the most neglected topics when it comes to environmental impact,” says Benjamin. “A beautiful building is unlikely to be torn down over the long run, and that prevents the carbon-intensive manufacturing of new buildings.”

Other building standards are less negotiable.

Making sure old homes that didn’t succumb to prior quakes survive the next one is always in the back of Michael’s mind when taking on renovations. He recalls watching the 1989 World Series when the earthquake shook Candlestick Park. “It wasn’t long after that seismic considerations in building sciences and construction practices became part of code.”

“Altering or adding to an existing structural element today often requires structural analysis and engineered connections with steel, straps and rods, and epoxy adhesives at depth of embedment, with all sorts of manufactured seismic accoutrements,” explains Michael. All these keep the structure safely tethered to its foundation. “We have the technology today, and we use it.”

Out of the Past

Both companies work in contemporary spaces as much as in older homes, but the classics do offer important lessons for modern construction and have deepened their work across the board. For Michael and JM Bogan, it’s understanding the basic principles underlying all home construction and seeing how the puzzle fits together.

“Knowing how something is constructed can be the next best thing to X-ray vision. This knowledge often provides an understanding of how a house can best be safely deconstructed.” Armed with that information, a design-build company can achieve virtually anything a modern remodel might call for.

Working on the classics has led Benjamin, Courtenay, and Blue Sound Construction to question some of the choices made in contemporary homes. Says Benjamin, “I think, for better or for worse, it has made us a bit skeptical of some modern building designs and practices. We’ve seen the things that don’t hold up versus those that do.”

Thankfully, as long as designers and builders keep exploring classic homes, the wisdom of older design will not be lost. Using modern materials and techniques, JM Bogan and Blue Sound Construction work to make sure these treasures endure.

Passion Projects

Tudor Tune-Up

Georgian Revival

Michael’s favorite JM Bogan project was the full restoration of the Wurdemann Mansion in 1995. This handsome 1915 Georgian—listed on the National Registry of Historic Places—is the last surviving home in the “first eight” community in Lake Forest Park in Seattle and a cherished community asset.

The two-acre home features extensive gardens and fountains, French doors, four bedrooms, a library, and a carriage house. JM Bogan was hired to restore much of the home, indoors and out, including additions in the form of the new master bathroom and sewing room and the transformation of the carriage house into into an ADU and three-car garage.

JM Bogan strove to preserve the existing structure and ensure new millwork matched the old. For their impressive efforts, they received MBAKS’ 1995 REX Award for Room Addition. Says Michael, “It was a wonderful opportunity and a feather in my cap. More than a quarter century later, it still stands.”

By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone

Reducing greenhouse emissions means housing more people in healthier, more energy-efficient homes in cities near jobs, amenities, and transit. Unfortunately, a lack of affordable options has priced residents out of booming cities like Seattle and into sprawling suburbs with long, carbonintensive commutes.

A new generation of homebuilders understands that the lack of affordable housing and climate change are related problems requiring interlinked solutions. One of the leading lights in this new way of thinking and acting is Green Canopy NODE.

Where housing is located and who can afford it matters as much as how it’s built—a realization Green Canopy NODE intuitively grasps. For them, solving the housing problem at scale means creating a new paradigm where green housing is accessible to people of all income levels. It sounds easy, but it’s complicated.

Green at Scale

Green Canopy NODE brought together Seattle-based carbonmitigating construction firm NODE with Green Canopy, a green development and construction company based in Seattle and Portland with a long history helping lead the net zero revolution.

In a 2021 press release announcing their merger, Green Canopy NODE Co-CEO Bec Chapin said that the company’s aim was “an evolution of the industry to build more houses faster that create greater health, wellbeing, and resiliency for people and communities now and in the future.”

For Aaron Fairchild, Green Canopy NODE co-CEO, it’s as much a moral question as a practical one.

“As humanity continues to grapple with the need to house more people, our communities and planet feel the strain. We’re trying to lessen the strain and offer more regenerative solutions that help build communities while prolonging the life of the resources required to do so.”

For Green Canopy NODE, transforming the homebuilding industry requires a multifaceted approach: building more housing where it’s needed, offering a full suite of development services to other housing providers, prefabricating building components offsite, and deploying an impact investment fund for projects.

Build, Build, Build

Green Canopy and NODE’s coming together allowed them to pool their respective experience in green development and technological innovation to scale up construction, leading to their multifaceted approach. I recently chatted with Fairchild to find out more about each aspect of their overall work.

Obviously, the first is building housing, lots of it.

Green Canopy NODE builds rowhouses, townhomes, and multifamily units because they’re a more affordable option for families who want to live in high-quality neighborhoods with jobs and amenities. They are experts in the “missing middle” with the real estate chops to secure land for infill development.

Not an easy ask in a city where land value is through the roof.

“It’s hard to build affordable housing in urban areas where housing is needed most,” Fairchild explains. “It requires greater subsidies and a more flexible approach. As time goes on, private, nonprofit, and public partnerships will become the norm.”

It’s not enough to just build them. They also have to be green.

“Nearly 100 percent of our homes are Built Green or Earth Advantage Certified,” says Fairchild. “At Green Canopy, we historically focused on energy efficiency. We’ve always built all-electric homes and have completed several net zero homes,” or homes that produce more energy than they take from the grid.

Building green homes not only helps the environment; it also makes housing a more affordable proposition. “Because we build homes that perform well beyond code, utility costs are lower, and residents save money.” Remarkably, the company is able to deliver net-zero-ready homes to the market at the same price as code-built.

But decarbonization is no longer just about saving energy. Green Canopy NODE has recently started focusing on carbon emitted from the production of their building materials, what’s known as embodied carbon. Making sure embodied carbon doesn’t outweigh a home’s performance is the next frontier in green building.

Promoting Innovation

Perhaps the most essential element of lowering green construction costs is using new technologies to increase productivity, including standardizing building components, modernizing the workforce by training them in the latest in construction methods, and manufacturing pre-fab building components.

For Fairchild, manufacturing is especially important. “To scale up and lower costs, the industry will need to embrace the power of off-site manufacturing more and more. It is the only known pathway to the sort of efficiencies required to build more sustainable, higherquality, lower-cost housing.”

By manufacturing offsite in the controlled environment of a factory and quickly assembling components onsite, Green Canopy NODE avoids inefficiencies. The company is investing heavily in pre-fabricated solutions that can be moved directly from manufacturing facilities to project sites.

They’re especially excited about fabricating cross-laminated timber (CLT)—an engineered wood product made from wood stacked and glued together at 90-degree angles—for residential mid-to-low rise construction.

CLT is easy to carve and groove with computer-controlled cutting machines, making it uniform and easy to install. The best part? “Along with being a beautiful and exceptionally strong building material,” Fairchild enthuses, “CLT also sequesters carbon and can be reused at the end of a building’s life."

Spreading the Love: Development Services and Impact Investment

To deliver the high volume of housing needed to have a substantial impact, Green Canopy NODE also needs to be able to employ their strategies on an expansive multi-project scale. The best way to do that is by extending a helping hand to other builders and nonprofit housing providers.

Their real estate development services have helped complete hundreds of homes reliably and cost-effectively. Current projectpartners include Sunnyside Village Co-Housing, Habitat for Humanity, Africatown Community Land Trust, Homestead Community Land Trust, and Grow Bainbridge.

Their services cover all aspects of homebuilding, including acquisition, finance, estimating and feasibility, architecture, construction, and warranty services. The key to their services’ effectiveness, says Fairchild, is that they’re vertically integrated.

“Vertical integration means our team can work with you at any stage of the development process, avoiding the headache of external bottlenecks.” It lowers the cost of developing housing projects because it cuts construction costs by consolidating different stages like R&D and procurement.

The result is a high degree of flexibility and control. “We’re able to rapidly respond to requests, enhancing our ability to collaborate.” And because the company manages real estate funds, they can drive housing demand in a way that’s “aligned with our sustainability and technology goals.”

The company created an impact investment fund management firm, Green Canopy NODE Capital, to invest in infill building projects in Seattle and Portland.

Currently, Green Canopy NODE offers both investment and fund management for more than 90 shareholders and over 45 limited partners. Over the last decade, the company has leveraged their building expertise and knowledge of the housing market to raise and manage over $70 million in accredited investor capital.

Heart and Soul

Green Canopy NODE has already tallied an enviable list of accomplishments. As of this writing, they have built more than 300 Built Green and Earth Advantage Certified homes in and around Seattle and Portland, mitigated 33,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas, and steered investment to six major infill projects. And they’re just getting started.

This success isn’t just an outcome of their business acumen. It’s driven by a housing philosophy. Housing is the “nexus of our lives,” their website declares, “providing shelter, safety, and security,” a place “where one can develop a sense of love, belonging, acceptance with friends and family.”

Housing is also a solution to sprawl, homelessness, and climate change. Its importance goes far beyond profitability. It may seem idealistic, but the company genuinely believes that a change in paradigm requires a change in thinking. Fairchild says that a sense of mission permeates their company culture.

The Green Canopy NODE team, he says, shares a sense of purpose, and “a desire to regenerate communities and environments.” When they take on new team members and partners, they “look for people from communities seeking greater empowerment and renewal.”

Of course, technology, experience, and expertise are crucial to carrying out the day-to-day work. But it’s their focus on community that may be the key to unlocking the new homebuilding paradigm. It’s the heart and soul of Green Canopy NODE.

Article photos courtesy of Green Canopy NODE

King County home prices hit their lowest point for July since 2012

Is that faint rumbling we hear in the distance carryover from Seafair Weekend and its barrage of air and sea entertainment? Or could it be that ever-elusive housing bubble finally popping and coming back down to normal levels of absurdity?

After all, even the Blue Angels have left town.

Maybe they saw the inevitable spin back down to earth. Or perhaps we’re all just blowing this housing cooldown out of proportion. Whatever stance you take, one thing’s certain: the Seattle-area real estate market has fallen to its lowest point in four years, shedding a crevice of light for homebuyers and inducing a fleeting shock of panic for owners sitting on their plots of gold-laden land.

The number of homes for sale throughout King County rose a staggering 48 percent in July as compared to a year ago, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which means inventory now exceeds 2015 levels. The 48 percent jump is the biggest we’ve seen in a decade and is mostly due to homes that have been waiting patiently for owners on the market. All signs point to a noteworthy dip in demand, as July home sales reached their lowest prince since July of 2012, when the market was at a low point.

How big was the decrease? King County’s July median home price of $699,000 is down $27,000 from the record highs we saw earlier this year. Last year, July was the most expensive month of the year.

In Seattle, home prices were down $25,000, making the median $805,000. Eastside prices also saw a dip, falling $30,000 in just a month to a median price of $947,000. Snohomish County, not one to be left out, also saw an increase in active listings, up almost 16 percent from this time last year.

Have we finally hit the ceiling? If we have, it’s not just regional; the national trend at the moment is one of a long-awaited inventory uptick just as hotspots like Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Austin are finally cooling off—metaphorically, of course (enjoy 90 degrees this week). Seattle is unique in the fact that its home sales saw the second-biggest jump in the country, according to info gathered from realtor.com, right on the heels of our neighbors down south in Silicon Valley.

Why is this happening?

Those in the know point to stabilized rents, high mortgage rates, slightly less frenetic population and job growth, and waning interest from Chinese buyers.

Many are already shouting, “I told you so!” at the top of their lungs but, as always, time will tell if we’ll continue this down-surge or if we’re all just suffering from a curable case of “buyer fatigue.” In the meantime, inventory levels are still an issue; while King County has doubled its March inventory, we’re still significantly below a healthy four-to-five months of inventory, according to Robert Wassa of the Northwest MLS board of directors. And people still need a place to live in some capacity.

We’ll be hearing a lot more about our region’s housing trends, whichever way they end up going, in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned.

Originally reported by Mike Rosenberg in the Seattle Times, “More Seattle-area home sellers lower list prices as market cools way down,” August 6

Data gathered from realtor.com and the Northwest Multiple Listing Service