1926 NE 25th Avenue English Arts & Crafts/Craftsman Style Designed by Emil Schacht

East meets West and Country meets City in this 1911 Arts & Crafts Style home designed by Emil Schacht, who helped bring this "modern" style to Portland in the early years of the 20th century.  This home is nestled amid tall hedges and trees, hiding the street from view.  Add creative landscaping with faux cottage windows and doors in surrounding walls, and you have a sense of being in the country from within the house.

The house was built for Harley Armstrong, a downtown Portland merchant.  Emil Schacht prepared three sets of house drawings for Armstrong over the period from 1909 to 1911 before Mr. Armstrong finally settled on this, the most modern, of the designs.  While almost devoid of the ornament of earlier years, there still can be found interesting details on the outside of the house, including classical stylized tassels on the rafter tails and simulated wooden pegs to hold the structure together.  When the current owners extended the house at the back with a sunroom, they carefully recreated these details in their new construction to preserve the architectural integrity of the home. (Schacht-designed homes appeared in the 2001 and 2002 home tours as well.)

The interior is notable, as are many of Schacht's designs, for its rich use of fine wood and its meticulous attention to detail.  For example, living room and entry hall woodwork is all expensive quarter-sawn oak, with simple lines but a recurring diamond motif, especially in the stairway. 

The interior decor of the home reflects the diverse backgrounds of the owners: Holland and the Middle East.  Antiques and heirlooms from their homelands and family adventures around the world are found in every room.  As one of the owners told us, "I don't have a collection of anything, I just have what I like."

Especially notable is the remodeled "old-fashioned" kitchen, which provides the modern conveniences with materials and the fine workmanship characteristic of the architect-designed houses of yesterday's Irvington.