1889 October | November 2018

home + design
Photos: Abel Zyl
FROM LEFT The Damselfly has thirteen windows and pale cabinetry. The roof looks like a breaking wave.
Olympia: Modern engineering and old-school craft unite
Twelve years ago, Abel Zyl was walking in his Olympia
neighborhood when he saw an 84-square-foot house parked in
a backyard. Its owner, he learned, was Dee Williams, a local
advocate for minimalist living and the tiny house movement,
who had designed and built the abode herself. When Zyl
bumped into Williams at the food co-op some time later, he
told her she had inspired him. “I ran into Dee, and I mentioned
that I kind of wanted to build my own tiny house,” Zyl recalled.
“She was like, ‘Kind of want to? You should do it.’” So, he did.
The small-scale construction project presented a fun
creative challenge to Zyl, who had previously worked as
an electrician and house remodeler and also studied boat
building in college. He pieced together his first design from
an array of found materials—including salvaged wood, the
remnants of his senior year boat project and objects picked
up in dumpster dives. “I’ve always had an eye for free piles,”
Zyl said. “My friends would laugh because I can spot a free
pile from a mile away.” With its cedar shingles and red-framed
windows, his first house looks like a simple cottage, but there
are hints of the aesthetic that he would hone for future tiny
house commissions, including a handmade “moon window”
and arched roofline.
That first project still sits on his property, a 34-acre farm
outside Olympia that hosts his workshop. There, he’s built
around thirty tiny homes under the company name Zyl
Vardos. Each design is as unique as its owner, yet still evokes
his distinct style. It starts with a pencil sketch that gets refined
via 3D-modeling software. The software enables him to “snap
the lines of the house off the pencil sketch,” he said. He then
uses a CNC (computer numeric control) machine to create
patterns and cut parts for his imaginative shapes. “Because I
use a CNC and a computer to design, I can make parts of any
shape. They give me this really great creative flexibility,” he said.
He then builds many components by hand, from the doors and
windows to porch lanterns and wood dryer vents.
His work has been called “whimsical” and “like something
from a fairytale.” While those are apt descriptors, his designs
always combine artistic flourish with practicality. Take the
Damselfly, a home built in 2017. For it, he composed a roofline
that appears as two pieces cascading over each other, like a
breaking wave. Thirteen handcrafted windows, including a
curved design over the kitchen sink, let in lots of natural light,
and the pale-colored cabinetry, walls and cork floor don’t
clutter the eye. Features like hidden drawers and cubbies in the
stair tread, and a sliding Shoji screen door at the bathroom,
save space. “My approach is not to lose track of what feels
inspiring and functional,” Zyl said. “I try to always bring those
two together.”
Much of his inspiration comes from his clients,
whom he refers to as “co-authors” in the design/build
process. “It’s always about people,” he said. “I’ve been
pretty fortunate and met a lot of amazing people.”
OCTOBER | NOVEMBER 2018 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE 27