When Stacy and Richard Lyon crest the final stretch of their long driveway, they arrive atop a flattened knob of ancient lava. The land drops steeply away in all directions, creating sweeping views across their seven-acre property in rural Deschutes County. They joke that it’s the kind of place on which 12th-century Europeans would have built a castle. Instead, a mid-20th-century gem crowns the site, an inspired collaboration between the Lyons and architectural designer Tom Carson, owner of FUSE Design + Build.
On their first visit, the Lyons fell in love with the property. What they didn’t know was how much history, and how many surprises, it would reveal. Piecing together neighborhood lore and county deed records, they discovered the first owner was Laura Hill, a writer from the Bay Area, and her husband, who purchased the land in 1964 for “$10 and other good and valuable consideration.” The first recorded structure on the site was a 1,000-square-foot home completed in 1965.
“The single-story was built as a highly specific geometric design, taking cues from Frank Lloyd Wright, with 30-degree angles appearing everywhere,” Carson said, “which made it very interesting.” One end resembled the bow of a boat, and the other had a massive lava-stone fireplace, anchored to its volcanic base.
In the 1980s, a subsequent owner added a wing at right angles to the south end of the existing ‘60s home, bringing the square footage to 1,600 and creating an L shape.
Over the decades, other creatives were drawn to the unusual site. In 2017, five-time Grammy Award-winner Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes acquired the property. A year later, she sold it to an artist who painted the entire interior white.
The Lyons bought the property in 2019. “We spent one night, and I’m like, do you smell that?” Stacy asked Rich. “It was [like the moment in] a horror movie when you realize something is deeply wrong.” The next morning, Rich started pulling cupboards and walls apart and discovered years’ worth of floor-to-ceiling rat nests. Removing the unwelcome boarders took months, during which the structure’s underside was encased in rat wire and every possible entry point sealed during renovations.
Reimagining a Larger, More Livable Home
Besides eliminating a rat infestation, initial preparations included sandblasting white paint from the beams to restore the original wood and moving an interior wall between the hallway and the adjacent galley kitchen, expanding the kitchen’s width by 2 feet.
The Lyons hoped to keep the dramatic floor-to-ceiling lava-rock fireplace, but its massive presence dominated the planned open space stretching from the kitchen to their private quarters. Ultimately, a modern peninsula fireplace divides the living and dining rooms, adding a new centerpiece and keeping the space open.
It would be two years before the couple spent another night in the house. During that time, they worked closely with Carson to plan additions at both ends of the original L. On the short arm, they added a glass breezeway that connects to a new laundry room and garage. On the long arm, they created a dining room linked to a new primary suite by a second breezeway. With these expansions and new energy-saving windows throughout, the dwelling grew to 2,500 square feet, offering unobstructed views from Mt. Hood to Mount Bachelor.
Inside the Home
The home blends contemporary design with throwbacks to earlier incarnations—like the big wood-carved hand now displayed in an entryway niche. The Lyons discovered it under a bush, one of several curious objects unearthed on the property.
Mid-century modern design dominates the single-story layout with human-scale rooms, generous but not oversized windows and natural woods that add warmth to airy spaces with minimal fuss. “I went to YouTube University to decorate the home,” Stacy said of her approach to learning mid-century design.
The kitchen and baths feature classic subway tile, while the kitchen’s vertical-grain Sapele cabinetry adds a warm mahogany tone that carries throughout the house—from a built-in living room cabinet to the Weldtex Monterey pine panels at the original boatlike end of the home, and into the couple’s primary bedroom.
The primary suite is spacious, with a whole wall of windows facing the Cascade Range.
Its bathroom offers what the couple jokingly calls “the million-dollar view”
—a direct sightline from the toilet to the mountains.
Stacy’s favorite spot is the dining room-slash-breezeway, where sliding doors on both sides open to the outdoors. To the west, a weathered juniper anchors xeriscaped gardens that draw bees and butterflies in the summer. To the east, early light makes it the perfect place for morning coffee.
With the improvements complete, the home matches the potential of its location, proving that thoughtful design can reshape an aging building while honoring its quirky past.
