[water rushing]
[music playing]
MAEVE: Wow.
CLEO: I see.
MAEVE: Get the little pink ones.
CLEO: Where do you see pink ones?
MAEVE: Wow.
[music playing]
Whoa, look at this guy.
It's all the stuff on it.
JAMIE: That's cool.
MAEVE: I'm just starting going there.
CLEO: There's so many memories that we're
having watching our children now that remind
us of when we were kids here.
[laughter]
We're now kind of making our own memories up
here as a family.
And you just can't replicate that, in my opinion.
[music playing]
It's important for us to continue to have this
be a family gathering spot.
CLEO: Because this place is so special to us.
[water rushing]
[music playing]
[chirping]
JAMIE: Morning, Violet.
VIOLET: Morning.
JAMIE: You want toast?
VIOLET: No.
[music playing]
JAMIE: We're located in Neskowin,
Oregon, which is about 80, 90 miles southwest of Portland.
It's the kind of place where the air is really cool,
but the sun is warm.
So you will go from wearing a sweater to a swimsuit
and then back into a sweater by the end of the day.
And you never know what the weather
is going to turn out to be.
If it's an overcast day, we'll go for a hike.
If it's a beautiful day, we definitely head down
to the beach to take full advantage of it.
JAMIE: CLEO: Cleo and I have three kids.
We've got Violet, Teddy, and Maeve.
This is a place that I've been coming
since I was my kids' age.
And Cleo and I actually met here when we
were our oldest daughter's age.
And so Cleo came up here from Napa,
and I came down here from the Puget Sound.
CLEO: - We live in Napa, so the drive is 10 hours.
By the time we get here, we are just so excited to be here.
We roll down the windows on the way
into Neskowin to smell in the ocean air
and the forest air mixing together.
It's my favorite smell in the world.
JAMIE: You can also feel the stress
kind of leave the body a little bit when you get here,
you know?
[laughter]
[music playing]
CLEO: The house is about 1,400 square feet,
with one large living area that includes a dining
room and living room, kitchen, two
bathrooms, and three bedrooms.
[chirping]
JAMIE: My grandfather moved out to Oregon in the late '40s.
And he had a young daughter, my mother.
And they bought this house early '50s,
and it's been in the family ever since.
I'm one of eight kids kind of a "Brady Bunch" blended family.
2015 rolled around.
My dad and mom said, well, what do you
guys want to do with the house? We think we're going to sell it.
And Cleo and I stuck our hands up and said, no, you're not.
We're going to buy it.
And so we bought it from my parents in 2015.
The whole idea was to keep it in the family
and have it go on beyond our generation to our children
and maybe someday to their kids.
[chirping]
When this flag is out, that means
cocktail hour is almost about to start, just so you know that.
[laughs]
[music playing]
CLEO: When you come into the house,
there's not a formal foyer or anything like that.
You're just immediately, you know,
part of the home in the main room, where everybody gathers.
This space is the dining room, living
room, kitchen, and also bar.
So this room was once very dark.
There was no overhead lighting.
The ceiling had years of cigarette smoke
and dark-wood paneled walls.
JAMIE: Before that, there was an orange shag carpet,
so that was, like, a previous iteration.
We came up here, and I realized I
was banging around, not relaxing, and trying
to fix all the stuff.
And then at that point, we said, we've got to do something.
CLEO: And the roof was leaking.
JAMIE: Roof was leaking, the whole thing.
CLEO: Yeah.
Foundation was slipping.
JAMIE: Then it kind of turned into
a full architectural remodel.
When this house was originally built,
it wasn't built with a footing.
So it was built on a slab.
The east side of the house, that entire slab
was 8 inches lower than the front of the house.
And so one of the major things we had to do
was to bring that back up to grade.
So, I mean, that was one of the biggest,
like, construction challenges that we faced.
[chirping]
There were so many memories, so many Christmases, so
many holidays we'd spent here.
Like, all that stuff kind of seeps into the bones
of a place, you know?
And you can feel it when you come in.
And even though I definitely wanted to refresh it,
like, how do we still capture that?
We really wanted to preserve some
of the feeling of the original home and enhance it.
The kitchen used to be basically here,
and it was just a similar setup in terms of the kitchen.
It was a shotgun-style kitchen, but it was really cramped.
And so just this open concept didn't exist previously.
[music playing]
[side conversation]
CLEO: This is one of my favorite spots here.
Here, you have the mountains and the wetlands.
And then out the other way is the ocean.
The biggest design feature in here that
mattered the most to us was these gorgeous
floor-to-ceiling windows.
So, I mean, the whole reason we come out
here is to have a view of the Pacific Ocean
and a view of these beautiful dunes and really enjoy that.
[music playing]
All this wood paneling is all reclaimed
wood from the original house.
CLEO: We had a great contractor.
And they took everything down to the studs,
kept all of the original wood paneling,
planed it and refreshed it, and then put it all back up.
It brings all the warmth back into the home.
You know, I love just how the line,
it kind of continues throughout this room.
JAMIE: It's just such a gorgeous design feature.
CLEO: We definitely host a lot, so having a huge dining area
was really important to us.
Our family is lively, spirited.
[laughter]
There's no shortage of action.
CLEO: [laughs] I love it.
That's my grandfather.
[music playing]
Kind of the life of the party, just a really
gregarious, outgoing guy.
And his spirit very much is still a part of this house.
CLEO: We love wine.
Our connection to wine comes from my family.
My dad started a winery in Napa in the '80s.
And now, I run a winery from a vineyard that my dad planted.
So here's the primary bedroom.
JAMIE: For the most part, we kept
the same layout of the room, with the exception
of this area over here.
I think this is just such a gorgeous cantilevered window.
To be able to open up the curtain in the morning
and have this view is just incredible.
JAMIE: The window really frames the beach.
I mean, really, it looks like a painting or a photograph.
It really is pretty special.
[chirping]
[music playing]
You know, so my grandfather would come down.
Other people would use the house.
They would always drink his booze,
and they wouldn't replace it.
So he had this put in.
He got the hidden liquor cabinet back there.
Now, I suppose everybody will know where it is,
but that's OK.
[chuckles]
[laughter]
[music playing]
CLEO: So this is the kids' bunk room.
JAMIE: This used to be my room when I was
a kid when I'd come down here.
My older sister always says it was her room,
but as far as I'm concerned, it was my room.
But--
CLEO: We can just keep it simple.
I think we should do that or climb right over.
Oh, OK, I see.
I have to say, when we first moved in
before we had moved all of our stuff back in,
I was a little worried.
I mean, it was gorgeous, but I was like,
oh, gosh, it doesn't feel quite right.
But then once we had the last box unpacked, [laughs]
my concerns were gone.
You know, putting all these things back into the home,
it definitely felt like the beach house again.
[music playing]
[chirping]
[water rushing]
The way the sun hits the grass and the beautiful coastal pines
out here, it's just such a beautiful landscape to have
right in front of our house.
I proposed to Cleo right up on the ridge up there.
[water rushing]
[chirping]
When I look at the house and think about it
from being out here, I feel really,
really proud to have something that's
so special in our family history and now
our joint family history.
And I think about the thread from my grandfather to my mom
and now to us.
You can't replicate this.
If I had my last dollar, it would be spent here.
CLEO: It'll last for the next 30, 50 years.
Yeah.
Let's make it 50.
[laughter]
[music playing]
[water rushing]