It takes a certain kind of person to buy a vintage house sight-unseen, to dive headfirst into the rough waters of reviving a property’s faded glory without even opening the front door.
Josh Hissong, the Spokane-based principal of HDG, is that guy.
Patrick Martinez
“I’m a bit nomadic. I’ve renovated and sold 10 or 11 houses, which is why I’m single,” says Hissong with a laugh. “No, that’s not true! That’s not the reason. I’m sure I have other faults. I just love taking things that were once beautiful but forgotten and making them beautiful again.”
Hissong founded his design firm back in 2010, after he was laid off from a previous job, and took a scrappy approach to establishing a name for himself. He and his partner, Armando Hurtado, renovated drive-through coffee stands, small commercial properties, modest residential projects, and really “anything that would come our way.” Steadily, they built a design portfolio that spread from Spokane to a wider swath of the Pacific Northwest.
“Now we do $30 million houses and work in 12 states,” he says.
Patrick Martinez
HDG is hired to build sprawling vacation homes from the ground up in exclusive enclaves like Gozzer Ranch in Idaho, but Hissong’s sweet spot, or at least his pride and joy, is the smaller-scale remodels of modern homes that showcase clean lines and clever use of smart materials. In 2019, one of those homes Hissong bought on blind faith and then restored ended up on the cover of a popular modern design magazine. It was clear from the beginning that Hissong had tapped into something interesting.
“Lately, there’s a huge upswing in people looking for these homes. When I was in that house, I had 15 people in a single year knock on the door and say, “Name your price,’” he says.
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Everyone has their own design aesthetic, and that’s welcomed. If everyone liked the same things, the world would definitely be a lot more boring. But sometimes a design aesthetic doesn’t quite match its surroundings, like what the previous owners did to this 1958 Eichler E-111 home in the San Mateo Highlands.
Raised garden beds are an excellent choice for gardeners looking to enhance their growing space. The best raised garden beds offer benefits, such as improved soil conditions, better pest control, and easier maintenance. Our expertise at Savvy Gardening stems from years of hands-on gardening in raised beds and thorough research, ensuring that our recommendations are practical and reliable. We’ve narrowed our favorites to a list of six. We meticulously evaluated various factors, including durability, material quality,
This year Chelsea Flower Show was full of interesting trees and shrubs with lots of dreamy woodland-edge planting in dappled light underneath leafy canopies. Native trees such as hawthorns, hazels and silver birch were the favoured choices in many of the show gardens, with a mixture of native and non-native ornamental plants selected for resilience and sustainability. In Ula Maria’s Forest Bathing Garden, white foxgloves, cow parsley and other umbellifers like Baltic parsley (Cenolophium denudatum) and valerian (Valeriana officinalis) were mixed with the simple shade-loving grass Melica altissima ‘Alba’ while Tom Stuart-Smith showcased intricate tapestries of interesting foliage in different shapes and textures. In other gardens, orange was a popular colour in many shades, from deep rusty orange irises to pale orange geums, especially in Ann Marie-Powell’s exuberant Octavia Hill Garden. As always, the Grand Pavilion is the ideal place to discover new and interesting plants showcased by some of the country’s leading nurseries.
Jasmit Singh Rangr, a Berkeley-based architect, founder of Rangr Studio, and a lecturer in architecture at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, is technically responsible for building his family’s stylish, minimal, cost-conscious home near the Grizzly Peak summit in the Berkeley Hills. But the behind-the-scenes mastermind who made it possible is his wife, Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit, public interest environmental law firm. Anyone familiar with the area’s cutthroat real estate market won’t be surprised to hear that the search for a vacant, buildable lot in one of the most coveted neighborhoods in the West required Dillen to use all of the skills that make her a great lawyer: creativity, a knack for analysis and research, perseverance, and the art of persuasion.
About 70 miles south of Jackson Hole, 2150 Robinson Lane is a sprawling property with a castle, fully outfitted with tunnels and towers—and it can be yours for the cool price of $14 million. It hit the market in April, and since then, all eyes have been on this extraordinary real estate opportunity.
There’s no question that people love Trader Joe’s, and while you might be popping in for the current end-cap display of Ube Mochi Pancake & Waffle Mix or Pizza Party Potato Chips, I’m taking full advantage of the springtime buffet of blooms. For me, there is no greater pleasure (or budget-friendly flower shopping) than building your own bouquets out of TJ’s flowers and fillers. Whether you’re looking to make an arrangement for someone you love, or just to add a little splash of seasonal style to your tabletop, here are a few tips and tricks to take your springtime stems to the next level.
Perched above Los Angeles in the Mount Washington neighborhood is a home that rivals Barbie’s Dream House. The Spanish Revival home, owned and transformed by celebrity hairstylist Rob Talty, is truly a sight to behold with its ombré pink exterior and lush garden that’s a habitat for butterflies and hummingbirds. And did we mention that it was just put on the market?
Vacation homes are meant to be places to relax and recharge, which means the design and architecture should set the tone. And that’s exactly what Celeste Robbins of Robbins Architecture did in this four-bedroom, five-bathroom home in Driggs, Idaho, which is featured in her new book, The Meaningful Modern Home: Soulful Architecture and Interiors.
As the sun sets, your new petunias start to emit an otherworldly green gleam in your garden. The scientists behind biotechnology startup Light Bio are now selling Firefly Petunias—a genetically modified version of the petunia that glows gently in the dark.
When it came to the kitchen in their three-bedroom, two-bathroom 1930s San Francisco home, the owners wanted keep the current square footage and layout, but adjust the space to make it work harder for their family’s needs (they have two daughters). So they brought in Allie Allen and Sasha White of Shiny Shed Collective to oversee the renovation of the 144-square-foot L-shaped room.