The Allison, Newberg, Ore.

Certainly high on that list was the project’s appearance. Schaefer says that Joan Austin was adamant that she didn’t want The Allison to be a traditional lodge-looking project.

Through conversations with the client, Schaefer says not only did a love of the land and a respect for it become apparent, but the story of how the fertile soil of the Willamette Valley came into being conveyed the idea that the project came out of the earth.

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“Having this project appear like it was part of the land and had evolved on the site naturally and that it was respectful of its location were things we talked about early on,” Schaefer says. “All that made a good case for the use of natural stone.” Also helping to make the case for stone in this non-traditional project were the general contractor – the Portland, Ore., office of Seattle-based Lease Crutcher Lewis – and the masonry contractor, Guinett Masonry of Vancouver, Wash.

Mannie Mills, project manager for Lease Crutcher, explains that firm was recommended to the Austins by GGLO.

“GGLO designed a project (the Cedarbrook Lodge) that we built in Sea-Tac, Wash., that had some of the same baseline designs of The Allison,” Mills says. “The finishes are very similar.”

As with the choice of GGLO, Mills adds that the selection of the general contractor wasn’t exactly a bid situation.

“It was a competitive process, but a multi-layer interview process,” he says. “Springbrook Properties gathered a list of contractors they would be comfortable working with; they kept narrowing it down and narrowing down, and we were selected after that.”

Lease Crutcher was then responsible for finding the subs and the suppliers, and they had early help from Guinett Masonry on specifying the stone components.

Again, Mills says Guinett was chosen after a modified hard-bid process that looked at things such as safety, quality, cost and schedule.

“I had not worked with them before, but they came highly recommended,” he says. “We got involved with them early and it became more and more clear that they were the logical choice and the strong, local choice for the quality and type of materials that would be selected and used on the project.”

“They were pleased that we were involved in the beginning,” says Gregg Paull, Guinett president. “We did some sample panels trying to figure out the whole thing. Then, we gave them a price; they weren’t necessarily looking for the best value, but rather for the best product for the value.”