photo by: Ed Casaccia
Milwaukee-born and Madison-educated, native Wisconsinites Jeff and Beth relocated to Oregon in 1982. By training, Beth is a computer scientist and Jeff is an MFA furniture maker. The pair quickly moved into a fixer-upper near 26th and Hawthorne in Southeast Portland and planned to stay for a few years, remodel the house, and move out.
Three daughters, two remodels of their home, and twenty years later, they never left. But after perfecting their own home, it was time to expand. So in 2003, they subdivided their lot, separated from their former backyard, and broke ground on a new project. Jeff and Beth completed this property in 2004, a newly built and creatively narrow duplex unit. Six years later in 2010, they began a new kind of project and opened a fully furnished, extended-stay studio unit above their remodeled garage. And rather than stick to the mold, 2013 brought another new project and one of the more distinctive development/remodeling/recycling/construction projects you’ve heard of. The historic Phelps-Montgomery House was relocated from Hawthorne Boulevard to Madison Street, completely redesigned and revamped, and rented as seven apartment units just eleven months later.
Recovering from their third project – and a major one at that! – Jeff and Beth have been in Portland for over thirty years and consider themselves natives now (godparents of the neighborhood, even). At the helm, Jeff is the woodworker, but the royal and proverbial “we” is humorously used by the rest of the family and each project really has been a family affair. Carrying over from the days of family remodeling parties involving chimney removal, roofing, and tiling, Jeff didn’t do it on his own. Beth’s creativity has been a driving force for all projects and the girls have offered up their help over the years.
When not balancing their day jobs alongside property and construction management, Jeff and Beth sail their Hobie Cat on the Hood lakes, bike across Portland, attend film festivals, host homemade wood-fired pizza parties, and spend time with their three grown daughters living in Eugene, Brooklyn, and Seattle.