Oregon Winery Transforms Farmstead Into Modern Estate
Explore Sequitur Winery in Oregon, where a 1937 dairy barn is transformed into a modern estate. Discover this stunning hospitality design finalist.
Sequitur Winery in Oregon’s Chehalem Valley has been named a finalist in the 8th annual GRAY Awards for Hospitality Design. The project, led by Portland-based firm Observation Studio, transforms the historic Etzel Farm into a working winery and farmstead. The property sits in a region known for its rich soil and pinot noir production.
A Barn Transformed
The centerpiece of the design is a 1937 dairy barn restored into a space for winemaking. The structure was built from Douglas Fir and Cedar trees harvested directly from the property. The original frame remains intact, providing the core of the building’s form. New additions to the site were constructed using timber milled on-site, ensuring the architecture mirrors the surrounding setting.
Resourcefulness guides the entire site plan. The farm repurposes old elements for new functions. A terra-cotta milk shed now houses restrooms. A concrete grain silo serves as an egress stair. Reclaimed wood from deconstructed buildings finishes the floors, walls, and ceilings of the tasting room. The goal is to honor the legacy of the land while maintaining a functional farm.
The tasting room sits at the property’s heart, designed to connect visitors to the farm’s various settings. The interior features window seats that frame views of the working spaces. Guests are seated facing the light and sounds of production, creating a direct link between the tasting experience and the agricultural process.
Living and Working Together
The reinvented Etzel Farm accommodates a variety of activities under one roof. Production, animal husbandry, crop harvesting, and wine aging all take place within the restored barn and surrounding structures. The design also includes living quarters and entertainment areas.
According to the firm’s profile, the architecture seeks to find a “fundamental question” for each project. In this case, the answer balances technical precision with a lyricism suited to the Pacific Northwest. The design team includes Brent Linden, Christopher Brown, Dillon Phillips, Jared Abraham, and Hutch Landfair.
Winemaking here is not an isolated activity. It is embedded in the daily rhythm of a working farm. The architecture does not separate the tasting room from the fields; it allows them to overlap. When visitors taste wine, they are surrounded by the evidence of that work—the milled timber, the repurposed silos, and the restored barn.
Sequitur Winery by Observation Studio is a finalist in the 8th annual GRAY Awards in the Hospitality Design breakout category. The project honors the region’s history as a multi-generational family of winemakers, located at a seam between loamy wetland meadows and forested hillsides in the Chehalem Creek Valley, outside Newberg, Oregon. This location places the winery within one of the most fecund ribbons of soil for pinot noir vines in the United States.
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A Barn Transformed
The centerpiece of the design is a 1937 dairy barn restored into a cathedral for winemaking, the result of an ethic of resourcefulness and honor for the land and its legacy. The barn’s original frame remains in use as the barn’s structure, and the structure of the new buildings are made in a similar manner from trees felled and milled on site. The buildings are as much a product of their site as is the wine that’s made inside them.
Resourcefulness pervades the farm, as many of the buildings are built from repurposed elements of the farm’s original outbuildings. The old terra-cotta block milk shed was converted into a restroom building and the concrete stave grain silo converted into an egress stair. Floors, walls, and ceilings in the tasting room building are fully finished with reclaimed wood from deconstructed buildings at the farm.
The tasting room building is located at the heart of the property, connecting visitors to its many settings and working spaces. The warm interior space allows for hosting guests in an intimate setting, contrasting a sense of calm with the natural hum of the land and wine production. Serving is arranged in multiple window seats, connecting the tasting experience to the light and sounds of the farm.
Living and Working Together
The restored barn and surrounding additions accommodate wine production, animal husbandry, crop production, and harvesting, as well as living quarters and spaces to entertain, taste wine, and experience a lively working farmstead. This integration ensures that the architecture does not separate the tasting room from the fields, but rather allows them to overlap.
Winemaking is not an isolated activity but is embedded in the daily rhythm of a working farm. When visitors taste wine, they are surrounded by the evidence of that work—the milled timber, the repurposed silos, and the restored barn. The design team includes Brent Linden, Christopher Brown, Dillon Phillips, Jared Abraham, and Hutch Landfair.
Observation Studio is a full-service architecture and interiors firm based in Portland, Oregon. Their philosophy is one of productive tension—between lyricism and technique; texture and clarity; generosity and precision. We seek with every project to understand the often multiple narratives and desires that drive each client, and to transform those drives into built space.
Our work seeks to marry the subtle and the rustic; the narrative and the formal. We begin each project by finding its fundamental question, and then proposing and re-proposing possible answers to that question. We have chosen the Pacific Northwest as our permanent home and are continually and newly inspired by its extraordinary settings and lively communities. Drawing on founder Chris Brown’s history working with regionally-inflected architects like Marlon Blackwell and formally-innovative architects like Brad Cloepfil, we see great richness where we are, and work both locally and nationally to harness the qualities we see here.
Our architecture is one of understanding and generosity. We are deeply steeped in the history of craftsmanship and the Pacific Northwest’s design legacy, whether in the historic culture of a specific materiality or contemporary craft approaches. We have been the recipient of numerous accolades, including Architectural Record’s storied Design Vanguard program and multiple AIA awards.
