Modern Farmhouse With Deep Roots

Camille E. Trummer’s great-grandmother’s dying wish was for her home, located on a bluff above the Willamette River, to stay in the family and not be sold to developers. So, in 2020, the 35-year-old social-impact consultant bought the property, a 1942 farmhouse in North Portland’s Overlook neighborhood. Now, Trummer and her family live in a modern farmhouse shaded by two massive sycamore trees—on the same gravel road as her grandparents and her father.

0 of 4

“We knew we had to rebuild something that represented the integrity of Portland,” says Trummer, a fourth-generation resident of the city, “but also the vision of what we want for the next generation of our family.”

Her roots in the property ran deep—but the original house had to go. Trummer took it as her chance to design and build exactly what she wanted for her partner, Daniel, and two kids, Naomi and Jonah. She kept the construction in the family, too, demolishing the original farmhouse with Daniel and her father and engaging her cousin Lance Safranski of Residential Renovations to build it back up. The rebuild also included sustainability upgrades such as a metal roof, a tankless water heater, and locally sourced materials from businesses such as Rejuvenation and Cedar & Moss.

Trummer worked with architect Colin Jensen at Thesis Studio to design something that would also make her German-born partner feel as at home in Overlook as she does. They landed on a modern, Scandinavian-influenced Pacific Northwest cabin with a large porch and generous windows overlooking the river. Visitors enter into the open-concept living room, dining room and kitchen on dark floor tiles reminiscent of Daniel’s grandmother’s mud room in Germany. In a few places, the subfloor under the brand-new white oak planks sourced from Germany squeaks—a nod to the past that Trummer refused to let her cousin repair.

As busy working parents, the Trummers wanted a home that would help them decompress. For them, that meant tons of natural light, clean lines and an airy feel.

“Daniel is all about German functionality,” she says. “He asked, ‘How are we going to use the space every day?’ And I pair that with aesthetics and how to make it look pretty.” (They also worked closely with Andy Barlow at Thesis Studio on the interior design.)

There is a lot of white, which has concerned some visitors when they realize a 7- and 2-year-old live there.

“People come in and say, ‘You have a white couch? Are you nuts?’” Trummer says. “But one of the things we teach our children really young is about respecting a space. I think that’s from German culture because there’s not a lot of space so you need to think about your body and how you treat your surroundings.”

Next up, the Trummers plan to finish the basement and landscape the yard. But the swing in the sycamore tree is staying: The wood has grown over the hinge.

0 of 4

This story also appears in Willamette Week’s Home Guide Magazine, Nester, published October 2022.