[ambient music]
TIM PFEIFFER: The work that I do is so much about home building,
about creating place.
How does every little thing that lands inside of an environment
feel like it belongs there?
It has its own little story.
Creating an environment where anybody walks in the door
and they get a sense of comfort and safety and warmth.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to give people.
That was that nice one to give myself.
Jackpot, you ready for a walk?
Come on, buddy.
It doesn't ever get old.
Every morning, I come down here and as equally refreshed.
It's a pretty great spot.
It's not the prettiest beach in the world, but it
the relics of time, for sure.
All of these little piers and everything
used to be operational, and now, I see them as beach sculpture,
which is interesting.
All right.
[music playing]
My beach cottage is located a little bit South of Seattle.
We're on Dockton, which is a point
in the middle of Quartermaster Harbor on Maury Island.
It's one of the bigger islands in the Puget Sound.
I think from 1900 until 1930, this
was like the largest wooden building location in the world.
So it shifted from being a fisherman's
place to a shipbuilding place.
And they had dry docks out in the middle of the harbor.
So it has this kind of amazing history of an industrial place.
So my full-time home is in Seattle.
My life in the city can be relatively chaotic.
I have two businesses.
I've got an architecture and interiors firm and then a
big home store and art gallery.
It's 100% non-stop.
On a very good day, it could be an hour and 15, an hour
and 20 minutes to get from my place on Capitol Hill
to Maury Island.
The ferry becomes your meditation space.
And then as soon as you roll on to the island,
it becomes this very lush and beautiful,
really magical kind of place.
One of the key reasons for having this house
was, of course, for personal escape for me because, I mean,
I love the water.
And I always wanted a waterfront place
that was like easy access.
When I first got here, it felt pretty grungy.
There was this little one-car garage
that was like probably 100 years old
that was just kind of sloping down the hill.
There had been a 1960s wrap-over porch
that had been put on in these weird connection points.
Second you stepped inside and you just saw through everywhere
out to the water.
That was pretty much a singed pin for me.
But what really drew me to Maury Island
was this kind of romantic notion in my head of looking out
the window as a kid and thinking like,
that's the place I would really love to have a house someday.
As an adult, the beach houses that I
grew up with had gone away.
And it was almost like a generation
had passed where there wasn't a fight for family beach house.
Picking this place up and starting to create life here
was the destination point for my family to all gather,
which makes it really sweet, given how
crazy everybody's lives are.
So when I first arrived here, where the garage is sitting,
there was this kind of falling down
singular-shed-shaped structure that had a woodshed next to it.
So the garage itself was a footprint
that I got to work with.
My little workshop is kind of in there.
More or less, it's just a fun place space.
This just all ramped down the hill.
So there wasn't any of what we're
seeing in this kind of built up terraced garden space.
I like to garden over plant, as you're going
to see as we move through here.
[laughs]
The house interior is probably about 1900,
almost 2000 square feet.
So it's pretty small.
[music playing]
It does have three bedrooms, and it has a sleeping loft.
And that has two full baths.
We didn't have a dining room, really
a place for a dining table.
So this was one of the more monumental aspects of the shift
for the house itself-- to connect these two parts
and also to create a dining space.
Dining room table that my dad and I
built for 2000 for an old farmhouse
that I had when we didn't have something for Thanksgiving.
The kitchen probably was a little bit
of a challenge for the house, but I pretty much
want it to stay where it was.
Also, there are so many people in here
often when cooking, that this big pass through, actually,
has been super beneficial.
If I could snap my fingers and make something bigger,
it would be the island because five people will
hang out here all the time.
As you come into this room, the ceiling was short.
And this wall of bookcases didn't exist.
I love books, and I love reading.
So there's loads of books with great storytelling
from all generations.
And then just parts and pieces that I'd pick up at the state
sales and from artists.
This room is more of like the quiet space in the house.
But obviously, any day of the year,
it's just like this really pretty vista.
This was what you looked out of these windows
and saw, if you can imagine.
It was a monster big ship building from here all the way
to the south.
And they were building ships that looked like that.
Look at the scale of these guys.
See Dockton.
I think a good way to kind of describe the vibe of this place
is really casual, slightly nautical
spin on an old beach house.
I knew that it was a ship captain's house--
that was a real thing-- which was fun to work with,
because I've always been just fascinated
with the shipbuilding concept of this neighborhood.
So when I started diving into the history of it,
I got more excited about how I wanted to live with it.
I am kind of this slightly compulsive collector guy.
You'll kind of see that in the house, too.
It's like I see things, I bring things home.
Been the treasure hunter since I was a little kid.
I, occasionally, will put together stuff that's
been captured off the beach.
There is those elements mixed with sort
of a Northern California vibe.
Then I just started accumulating things that fell in line.
I found this crazy orange leather chair.
I was like, that is the most perfect
comfortable-looking chair, and it's exactly in my storyline.
I like older stuff, probably, for the way
it has frozen a moment in time.
What was it about, and why was it captured?
And what was that story about?
Our memories are oral history of our lives
and of our family's lives.
And I think that's what gets to happen here.
So this room was kind of like the first room
that I completed.
This was my parents' room.
This is a cute picture of mid-stream when
we were in the process of--
that was in the mudroom.
My mom always had these great beach houses.
That was a cycle of our summer lives.
We would spend the summers at the beach.
Having found out that she had stage four cancer,
I thought it would be so amazing to have a family house again.
My mother was like the formidable person in the family
and powerhouse, super athletic, took the lead
on everything in our lives.
And surprisingly, she got catastrophically ill.
There was a huge transition to move through.
And this place was just a little sanctuary
during that period of time.
We were lucky to have three more years of family hang, so.
You made it!
Good work.
You want to come down, too?
Always.
You guys have stuff?
Jackpot, get out of the water.
When people arrive by boat, they usually
just come straight on in and just beach
it because it's a little bit rocky.
But it's not terrible.
Are you wet?
A little bit.
I'll survive.
How are you?
Good.
Jackpot.
Look at him.
He's nuts.
TIM PFEIFFER: There's been nine years now of big
huge family 4th of July's.
And I'm lucky enough to have family,
a couple of my siblings, and tons of my aunts and uncles
and cousins all live in and around Puget Sound.
Cheers!
- Thank you. - Cheers.
Woo-hoo.
- Thanks for letting me bartend. - Yeah!
[laughter]
You're welcome.
And so people come and hang surprisingly, when
you wouldn't anticipate them.
A boat is honking out front, and you're like,
I don't recognize these people.
And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, right,
that's my cousin so and so.
That's been a very fun, like a really cool part of exactly
where I am because it makes it really
easy for my self sound family to participate in this place.
Copper River salmon right here.
- Yay! - Yeah.
- Ooh-wee. - Oh, my god.
All right. Bon appetit.
So beautiful.
Bon appetit.
Oh, my god.
Every day that I come here, I open the door.
And I'm like, lucky.
Don't get me crying because I'm really good at it.
I think, I feel particularly lucky because of all
the connections that I have here,
to be able to have landed this simple place with
the connectivity of my family.
I feel lucky to have been able to have this,
and I could be really happy to just sit down here and stay.
[music playing]