The home designer
Local designer Mark Stewart contributes a house plan to “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
As seen in the Tigard Times
Saturday, April 12, 2007
BY MIKEL KELLY
Mark Stewart pauses outside his
new office in downtown Sherwood.
Stewart designed the
house which will be featured on
ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition" on Sunday, April 22, at 8
p.m. on KATU-TV.
When ABC’s “Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition”
airs a week from Sunday,
nobody will be paying
closer attention than local
home designer Mark
Stewart.
Stewart, about to move from his
Tualatin office to brand new digs
in downtown Sherwood, designed
the 4,000-square-foot prairie-style
house in
Lawton, Okla., that stars in next
week’s episode.
The show will air on KATU-TV
at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 22.
The four-bedroom, 4½-
bathroom home was designed pro
bono for the Westbrook family
which is recovering and coping
with an injury that occurred during
Mr. Westbrook’s tour in Iraq, leaving
him without the use of his legs.
A spokeswoman for the show
called “five or six weeks ago,” said
Stewart. “She introduced herself
and said, ‘I need a home designed
for this couple in three days – and
we’re not going to pay you for it.’”
Apparently his name had been
passed along by designer Preston
Sharp, a fan of the prairie style
originated by architect Frank Lloyd
Wright and a specialty of Stewart’s
Mark Stewart Home Design.
“I think the house was built in a
week,” said Stewart.
“Mark Stewart’s design was a
great hit,” said Ron Nance, builder
for the Oklahoma project. “The
home is beautiful and phenomenally
functional for the Westbrooks’
needs. We were told over and over
by the cast and crew that this was
their favorite home.”
The first outsider
Another bit of distinction lies in
the fact that Stewart was the first
outsider be asked to design a
home for the show, now in its
fourth season, which has won
back-to-back Emmy Awards as
Best Reality Program.
Each episode of the popular
program features a race against
time on a project that would ordinarily
take at least four months to
achieve, involving a team of designers,
contractors and several
hundred workers who have just
seven days to completely rebuild
an entire house, including interior,
exterior and landscaping.
It is insane designing a home
that fast, said Stewart, pointing
out that they needed a completely
original design tailored to that
specific building site. It is equally
nutty that the show’s crews build
the entire home in just a few days,
too.
“They’ve got it figured out now
to where they build a pretty good
house,” said Stewart. “They aren’t
just thrown together.”
So, would he go through that
experience again?
“In a minute,” he said. “I love
those people.”
And the reason, he insisted,
was because the show makes such
a tremendous change in the lives
of the family.
“In the end, what they do is
take a family whose life is in the
toilet because (the house) doesn’t
work for them and completely
change their lives in a week,” he
said. “The only weird part is it was
done so quickly. It was done at
light speed.”
There’s almost a missionary
zeal surrounding the program,
said Stewart.
“They’re actually really doing it
because they believe what they’re
doing is important.”
“We are honored and have
been touched by the ‘Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition’ experience,”
said Stewart. “The work
they are doing, one family at a
time, is a true testament to the
kind of thing this world needs
more of.
“The Westbrook family home
we designed was an inspired design
– inspired by the family as
well as the ‘Extreme Makeover:
Home Edition’ crew.”
For the past seven years, Mark
Stewart Home Design has been
located at 8137 S.W. Seneca St. in
Tualatin, but that is just now
about to change. Stewart is opening
a new office, at 22582 S.W.
Main St., in downtown Sherwood,
in a couple of weeks – on April 25,
according to the schedule.
At the same time, the firm expects
to open a second office in
Bend, at 750 Charbonneau in
Northwest Crossing.
The Sherwood office will house
12 people, and visitors to the new
location will find a 3,500-squarefoot
space full of rich colors, a
mixture of materials that includes
wood and stone and an assortment
of amenities for clients.
“It’s a little bit of a challenging
location,” said Stewart of the
Sherwood site. “When customers
who we need to see in person get
here, we’re going to have quality
coffee drinks for them and other
little extras.”
But, he added, it’s not necessary
for customers to come to the
office for “70 percent of the business.”
Why Sherwood, then?
“Four years ago it became clear
I wanted to own my own office
because I was sick of paying rent,”
said Stewart.
Now, for the first time, he has
the opportunity to make an office
look the way he wants it to.
“We’ve been operating for 25
years in rented spaces, which
we’ve always had to kind of patch
together,” he said. “At a certain
point, if I go to somebody who’s
going to design my home, I kind
of want to like what I’m seeing.”
The goal here, he said, is to instill
the thought: “Well, if somebody
can do this, maybe they can
at least do my house.”
“I’ve loved Ralph Lauren kinds
of furnishings for an awful long
time,” he said.
Stewart lives on the Willamette
River at Newberg.
