A home should be a place where you can welcome your extended family — at least that’s what Leah Martin and Vikram Prakash thought. But while they loved entertaining at the house they shared with their three children, the experience wasn’t quite what they had in mind. “What happens is that when everybody comes to our Seattle home, our lives are so hectic we don’t really get to spend time together in the way we would really love to,” Martin said.
“We had been thinking for a long time that it would be so nice to find a place where we could all truly decompress as a family.” The obvious solution, they decided, was to build a second home in a rural spot outside the city. And because they are both architects — Martin, 53, is a principal of architecture firm Allied8; Prakash, 60, is a professor of architecture at the University of Washington — they relished the idea of designing their own home.
But where? In the summer of 2019, when Martin’s father came out from New York, he wanted to visit Orcas Island, a popular getaway reached by ferry. Martin and Prakash had never been, and they were spellbound. “It was just the most beautiful place,” Martin said.
“We were just mystified.” While staying on the island that week, they began looking at real estate. “There were plenty of beautiful places,” Martin said.
“We just couldn’t afford them.” As soon as they returned home, they created a search on Redfin to alert them to new listings in their price ran.
