The Bernstein's Bellingham Bay House

We first visited Bellingham in February, 2022 because we were becoming so concerned about the heat and fire danger in Boulder, CO, where we had lived for 23 years, that we wanted to explore cooler climates. The first day of our three day visit a realtor took us up this long, windy mountain road to a five acre lot on Chuckanut Mountain that had a sweeping view of Bellingham Bay and the Canadian Coastal Range on one side, and the other sides were expansive public forest lands filled with ferns, giant cedars and big leaf maple trees. We just stood there and started laughing. We had never seen such an extraordinary property! We knew right then that we were moving to Bellingham. We put our house on the market a few months later, and moved into a rental that October while we built our dream house in this extraordinary environment.

The lot was actually owned by a local design / build firm called Rubicon Homes. We worked closely with the owner, Matt Lynch, in designing the home, and in the winter of 2023 hired Modernous Interior Design to help us realize our vision of a calm, sophisticated, Scandinavian Modern interior that let the windows and views be the star of the show. The house was completed at the end of November, 2023 and we are so grateful that we wake up every day now in our own private forest by the bay.