Tour Base Camp with The Wall Street Journal
ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ON MAY 2, 2019.
BY NANCY KEATES
At the end of a narrow road, in an area so remote the producers of the television show “Northern Exposure” used it as a stand-in for Alaska, there’s a clearing in the dense trees. As you move into it, an expanse of crystal blue water ringed by snowcapped mountains and open sky is revealed.
“Welcome to my home,” says Bill Broadhead with a grin. He’s a tall, bearded, decidedly Northwest-looking 50-year-old political consultant. He’s standing at his front door at the end of a delicate wood and steel bridge that leads to the 7,700-square-foot, angled, glass, wood and stone compound he built along Cle Elum Lake, near the town of Roslyn in the Central Cascades of Washington.
Renowned Seattle architect Ray Johnston designed the house in three blocks; one each for recreation, sleeping and living. He connected them using interior bridges and wrapped the sections around the property’s point, angling it so every room has a view of the water. Mr. Johnston used shed roofs and exterior walls made of “gabions,” rocks inside wire baskets, which keep snow off the sides of the house and repel fire. Built against a hill, the lowest level has a wood deck with a rectangular infinity swimming pool that mimics the dark blue-green of the lake. Materials like polished concrete floors, fir walls and stairways give the house an unfinished, almost industrial feel that mixes with its refined, delicate details.
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