Midcentury passion: Couple restoring modern design of 1962 rancher

Amy Klamper   /  Correspondent

Steve Collette and Valerie Nafé have decorated their home in midcentury modern and Danish modern pieces. The living room has a Danish modern wall unit with caning on the doors. (Photos by DAN PELLE / The Spokesman-Review)

"It's kind of embarrassing," says Valerie Nafé, a passionate enthusiast of midcentury modern design and architecture. "I always liked midcentury modern – I just never knew there was a name for it."

Intuitively drawn to the clean, natural shapes of the midcentury period, Nafé and husband Stephen Collette spent years collecting secondhand retro furniture with minimalist lines and a space-age vibe.

But this spring, after purchasing a 1962 South Hill rancher with many original features intact, the couple got serious.

"We started collecting in earnest," Nafé says, recalling the effort to replace atomic-era thrift store finds with serious, period pieces. "It was like getting a crash course in midcentury (design) – we were saturated in it."

Today, Nafé and Collette are knowledgeable modern design devotees hoping to share their interest with others. But when the couple first started house hunting in 2006, they weren't looking for an architecturally significant home. Nafé says they wanted something with "clean lines, a low roof, a pool, and an indoor/outdoor seamlessness."

At the time, Nafé and Collette were living in a 1970s house near Manito Park when they first viewed the unassuming rancher off South Perry Street.

"It was like a lot of homes in this area on the outside," Nafé says.

The inside was a different story.

Although the house had been commissioned and custom-built by a prominent Asian family in the '60s, it had since been remodeled.

One such effort enclosed an original courtyard with a soaring, open roof to make way for a laundry and craft area. Nafé and Collette were especially dismayed by a contemporary sunroom addition, which Nafé disdainfully refers to as "the wound." Jutting from the great room onto a former patio near the original kidney-shaped pool, the all-glass addition mars the roofline and hampers energy efficiency.

To add insult to injury, Nafé recalls Victorian décor with pastel florals imposed on the home's clean, midcentury lines.

"It was just wrong," she says.

But through the lace chintz and mauve-colored walls, Nafé and Collette saw a house with good bones – open beam ceilings with the original knotless cedar planking and private lanai gardens off each bedroom, accessed through Andersen slider glass doors. There were two floor-to-ceiling brick fireplaces, including a double-faced fireplace in the great room, constructed by a mason who worked in the 1960s on St. John's Cathedral.

In addition, the house had many period features, including the original Nutone doorbell chimes, an intercom system and book-matched teak cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms.

"I looked at Stephen and said, 'I want this house,' " Nafé recalls.

They moved in six months later, and are now intent on a meticulous restoration of the home, aided in large part by the original hand-drawn blueprints acquired from the previous owners.

One of the couple's first tasks was to paint the front door bright orange, a striking contrast to the home's taupe-gray exterior.

They also set to work on the guest bathroom restoration, where they removed a jetted tub and reconstructed the original tiled walk-in shower.

In the master suite they installed radiant heat under new porcelain tile, and added a soaking tub and separate shower. An entry door was relocated to provide additional closet space from the adjacent hallway, and a partial wall was removed to create an open space between the bathroom and sleeping area. They finished the room with a solid teak Danish Torring bedroom set.

Next, Nafé says they plan to install radiant heat throughout the home to improve energy efficiency. Numerous baseboard heaters will be removed and the great room's large north-facing windows will be extended to the floor – part of the couple's vision of creating indoor-outdoor simpatico.

Eventually, they hope to restore the courtyard with the open roof. Nafé says they also plan to perform "surgery" to remove and heal "the wound."

Nafé says she takes immense pride in their home and hopes to raise awareness, respect and interest in Spokane's midcentury modern treasures.

"We're hoping to bring together a group of others who share an appreciation and enthusiasm for this architecture and the lifestyle it represents," she says, adding that the couple plans to host an open house in the near future. "It feels good, like being a steward for the period."