P R Ø K T R
stephen proctor | visual artist
Welcome to Rivendell!
“Nestled in the forest along the cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge, the Rivendell project is a perfect amalgamation of minimalism, biophilic design, healthy living and beauty.”
~ Nakamoto Forestry
Dream Big. Live Tiny.
The peaceful, awe-inspiring beauty of nature has been one of the greatest sources of inspiration for most of my artistic work. The great outdoors have had a profound influence in who I am, both creatively & spiritually. And after spending years of traveling to far off, beautiful wonderlands, I decided to start waking up in a wonderland of my very own.
After calling Nashville home for 15 years, I decided to take a leap of faith & move out West. In 2019, after a year of living in Portland, OR, I made my West Coast life official & sold my house in Nashville. Then the search for land & a house plan began.
I found the perfect little acre in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge, just 45 minutes from Portland. The dream was to build a sweet A-Frame house. But since I’m a self-employed artist, building such a dream was a bit out of reach financially-speaking. So I turned my gaze to a more economic, creative & semi-temporary solution: a tiny house.
To make a really long story very short, the tiny house did not work out. Mainly because of a stupid bureaucratic technicality coupled with a strict small town government (person). The story actually got picked up by DWELL Magazine, of all things. You can read both articles here.
“A Furnished Tiny Home With Japanese and Scandinavian Vibes Is Offered at $99K”
“Here’s What They Don’t Tell You About Living in a Tiny House”
Fast-forward an entire pandemic, I sold the tiny house & started over from scratch – on the same piece of land. And I am nearing completion of a brand new 500 square foot Scandinavian cabin that will serve as my home!
After years of researching pre-fab A Frame kit homes, modular designs, shipping containers, yurts, tiny homes, & traditional stick-builds, I finally landed on Den Outdoors, a company that designs construction plans for tiny homes, modern cabins, & A Frame houses. (I went with the Modern Alpine Cabin!)
Nakamoto Forestry, who provided the “yakisugi” siding on the house, wrote some nice words about my house & the spirit behind it. You can read them here:
A Tour of Stephen Proctor’s Rivendell Home
And you can follow my continued journey on my dedicated Instagram account for the house. @RivendellxPNW