A century ago, Wisconsin-born architect Frank Lloyd Wright turned home design on its head.

Today, a Bend builder and an architect are dotting the city’s west side with homes Wright would clearly recognize.

Arbor Builders recently finished a 1,600-square-foot home on Northwest Union Street, which incorporates Wright’s unique style of architecture.

A pioneer of modern American home design, Wright’s idea was to meld nature with architecture, creating spacious rooms filled with light, affordable for a middle-class family and shaped to fit on unconventional pieces of land. Wright called them “Usonian” homes. The word was a take on the term USONA, a 19th-century abbreviation of the United States of North America, according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Jason Adams, Arbor Builders’ owner, thinks the Usonian style can find a niche in Bend.

Adams teamed up with Cliff Scott, lead designer of Designs for Living, to build the Union Street home and another that’s almost complete on Northwest Albany Street.

The pair has 16 more Usonian homes in the pipeline, which they hope to build over the next 18 months.

The Union Street home — which sold last month for $415,000 — clearly stands out from its neighboring cottage and craftsman-style properties.

Sheltering overhangs and roofs staggered at different heights give the home a futuristic vibe.

The interior strips away some of the doors and walls that traditionally separate kitchens from living rooms and other common areas, creating an open feeling that was a staple in Wright’s homes.

Windows fill up as much of the outer walls as possible, bringing in plenty of natural light — Another nod to Wright’s philosophy of bringing natural surroundings into a home.

“We were looking for something that had a historic element to it, but would be new in Bend,” Adams said. “This type of design allows for a lot of creativity.”

Adams and Scott got the idea to replicate Wright’s model back in 2005, when Bend’s home market was booming. As the market softened in 2007, then collapsed a year later, they put those plans on hold. Adams survived the downturn by purchasing and fixing foreclosed homes.

But last year, emboldened by an uptick in sales and new demand for construction, he and Scott dusted off the Usonian blueprints.

Arbor Builders built just one home in 2011 and three in 2012. But the company is getting permits and starting construction on 10 this year. Adams builds in more traditional styles, as well as the Usonian design. But for now, he’s focused almost entirely on replicating Wright’s designs.

“The (Bend) market got so overbuilt with craftsman homes and cottages,” Adams said. “We wanted to bring something a little different to the market.”

Scott has spent nearly three decades designing homes, many of them in the craftsman style.

But the Usonian style also makes sense for Bend, especially on the west side, where wide, spacious home lots that haven’t already been developed are scarce.

“The homes fit in perfectly with this lifestyle of having a small, urban lot,” Scott said. “When Wright started this design, the whole idea was to make a home for the common man.”

Wright’s style was to create opportunities for families and friends to come together in the home. Early 20th-century American cottages continued the style of the 19th century, where large porches facing the street gave residents a chance to talk with passersby.

The automobile transformed that relationship, Wright recognized. He created the same open feeling inside the home, stripping away walls and doors that separated kitchens from living rooms and other common areas.

Adams’ homes on Union and Albany streets emulate that style. Usonians take about a month longer to build than their craftsman or cottage counterparts, Adams said. Cottages often include attics, which provide space for infrastructure like electric wiring and heating. But the Usonian’s open design means it takes longer to install many of those utilities.

And they aren’t for entry-level buyers. Adams expects to list the 1,800-square-foot Albany Street home at $399,000.

But if the sale of the Union Street home is any indication, there may be a market for them. It hit the market on a Thursday afternoon in early July. By 10 a.m. the next morning, it had an offer.

Adams believes the other Usonian homes will catch on as they’re built over the next 18 months.

Planning them has brought more business to Arbor Builders than the company has seen since before the market crash. Adams has five employees overseeing Arbor’s projects today, up from two full-timers and a part-time worker through much of the downturn.

“Construction as a whole has picked up, and we’ve really picked up with it,” he said.

Jim Miller, founder and CEO of a tech startup, moved his family and business to Bend:

— before learning Entrepreneur Magazine labeled Bend the next big city for entrepreneurship;

— before he knew about FoundersPad, the startup accelerator program, and

— before discovering Bend is home to a number of investors and venture capitalists.

Miller moved from Seattle to Bend last year for the quality of life, as well as the lower costs of living and running his business, KardioFit, an online wellness rewards program.

“We don’t have the traffic that we had in Seattle, but (we have) all the amenities and beauty,” he said.

Recently, others across the country also have discovered the entrepreneurial hub growing in Bend.

The city ranked 16 out of 384 metropolitan areas in the country for high-tech startup density, the concentration of startups relative to the nation as a whole, in 2010, according to an Aug. 14 report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., nonprofit dedicated to entrepreneurship.

Corvallis ranked 12th and the Portland metro area came in 23, according to the report.

While Portland has a growing community of software companies and innovators, Bend has also attracted hi-tech entrepreneurs because of the lifestyle, said Ron Adams, executive associate vice president of the Oregon State University Advantage program.

Universities have also increasingly engaged in entrepreneurial activities, he said, developing and attracting talent to the ideas coming out of university research. OSU’s Advantage Program, announced earlier this year, has a business accelerator to identify and develop startup companies and an industry-partnering component to help businesses conduct research and development.

“I think what’s happening in Bend is also a cultural shift,” Adams said, noting a possible Silicon Valley influence. “The value people are placing and the community is placing on entrepreneurship has gone up a lot (and) it appears it has been predominantly over the past 10 years … There’s something in the water.”

Bend Venture Conference

Bend Business Advocate Carolyn Eagan agreed the city has been working to attract entrepreneurs and cultivate startups since the early 2000s, noting the first Bend Venture Conference occurred in 2004.

“We started a long time ago providing infrastructure and support for these companies,” she said. “And some of our most prominent companies were started by one person with an idea.”

Today, a decade later, she said the entrepreneurial ecosystem is comprised of not only the Bend Venture Conference, but accelerator programs like FoundersPad and organizations such as Economic Development for Central Oregon and the Tech Alliance of Central Oregon.

“From the city’s perspective, we are a town of entrepreneurs,” she said. “Even if you start a little retail shop, you’re an entrepreneur. You’re starting something from nothing.”

Referencing data from 2011, Eagan said 90 percent of the companies in Bend had 19 or fewer employees.

“In Bend you either work for an entrepreneur or you are one,” she said.

The Kauffman Foundation report mirrors Eagan’s perspective, stating entrepreneurship is consistently linked with measures of economic development, such as employment growth. “Research shows that one high-tech job in a region is associated with the creation of more than four additional jobs in the local services economy of the same region in the long run,” the report states.

FoundersPad

Since FoundersPad, formerly called VentureBox, began in fall 2011, it has graduated 22 business founders,establishing 14 companies and creating 41 jobs that have attracted more than $2.4 million in capital, said Molly Mount, program manager of FoundersPad.

“By focusing on developing a new generation of entrepreneurs, most of whom have ties to the local area, FoundersPad is helping to build companies that will create jobs and spark economic growth in the region for years to come,” Mount said.

The program wrapped up its third session in July, and has plans to offer a fourth in January, she said. Other events, such as Bend’s Startup Weekend, where entrepreneurs launch a company in 54 hours, are also fueling the fire of entrepreneurship, she said.

“All the pistons are working together,” she said. “It’s one good engine with everyone collaborating, nurturing and supporting each other to really build the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Bend.”

Miller, of KardioFit, graduated from the second session of FoundersPad. He said the experience gave him access to successful entrepreneurs and investors which helped him hone his business plan.

In addition, he said there’s a lot of attractive components to locating a business in Bend.

“(Entrepreneurs) can come and cost effectively incubate and develop their businesses,” he said. “Real estate, salaries and all services across the board are cheaper here.”

When comparing the cost to live and do business in Bend versus Seattle, he said, Bend was about 33 percent less expensive, so money goes further in Bend.

In addition, he said, availability of flights from Redmond Airport makes traveling for business easy.

“I go to Seattle once every six weeks to maintain professional relationships and do business,” he said. “But I can be building my business in an area that is beautiful, that offers a great quality of life for raising a family and has access to talented and educated people that we can recruit into our business.”

Venture capital

Because of the entrepreneurial infrastructure in Bend, Eagan said, companies coming out of local entrepreneurial programs have been catching investors’ eyes.

“We’re starting to see more funding interest in Central Oregon and Bend.” Eagan said. “Lots of those startup companies require private investments. So what we’re seeing is more and more private investors considering companies in Bend because they know the companies in Bend have been well-trained and are ready for money.”

One of those investors is Dino Vendetti, a venture capitalist and co-founder, investor and mentor for FoundersPad.

Vendetti, managing director of Formative Ventures in Menlo Park, Calif., founded Seven Peaks Ventures, a $15 million Bend-based venture capital fund focused on investing in Web and software companies, according to The Bulletin’s archives and a Securities and Exchange Commission document.

“I am investing in Bend because I am finding very high quality entrepreneurs who are building interesting businesses that have the potential to scale,” he wrote in an email.

“Why Bend? Because it has a high density of entrepreneurs (tech or other), it’s launching a new four-year university and because of the close proximity to Silicon Valley.

“Oh, and also because I enjoy living here!”

 more photos

An excavator and a drilling rig prepare land Wednesday in NorthWest Crossing for the development’s next expansion, called the Discovery Park area.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

Work is underway to prepare land for the next big expansion of NorthWest Crossing, referred to as the Discovery Park area, with a proposed 175 housing lots, a 34-acre park and a 3-acre pond.

Heavy equipment has started to remove loose dirt in a former pumice mine on the property, said David Ford, general manager for NorthWest Crossing developer West Bend Property Co.

He said about 565,000 cubic yards will be removed and replaced, and about 200,000 yards of additional fill will be brought in to bring the land to the required elevation. He expects the work, which began Aug. 19, to take between six and seven months.

When complete, he said, the 98-acre area west of Mt. Washington Drive will be ready for building roads and laying out home lots.

The plan is to develop 172 single-family housing lots in the Discovery Park area, pending approval by the city. Three additional lots, including a nearly 5-acre parcel, are planned for multifamily housing.

“We’ll determine what we’ll do with those lots at the time the land is developed, depending on market conditions,” he said. “It gives us some flexibility to respond to the market.”

Ford said 15 acres of the 34-acre park will be improved, with a manicured landscape and paved trails, and the rest will be left natural. The improved section of the park is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2014.

“The goal is we would have our first phase of lots available in the Discovery Park area by spring or summer 2014, with homes available for sale spring of 2015,” Ford said.

In the existing NorthWest Crossing area, he said, builders are finishing up the lastresidential area, composed of 60 lots, on the east side of Mt. Washington Drive. Ford expects construction to be done by next month. He said a couple of parcels of commercially zoned land near Westside Church are also undeveloped.

— Reporter: 541-617-7818,