Attorney Matthew Bergman’s 10-acre luxury estate at 28604 97th Ave S.W. on Vashon Island is on the market for $5.9 million.
The 5,700-square-foot modern Northwest manse is one of the most architecturally significant properties available in the area.
Brokers Moira Holley and Scott Wasner of Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing, describing the gated, private home as “a soothing enclave of cedar, raw steel, bronze, concrete and glass.”
Bergman worked with venerable architect Rick Sundberg of what was then called Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen to site the house perfectly.
“You have Mt. Rainier in your living room,” Bergman says. “We literally took a compass when we situated the house to make sure Mt. Rainier was right there. There’s a very fluid relationship between inside and outside, intentionally.”
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home is open and flowing yet warm because of the expansive use of cedar. There are walls of windows to let in light.
The feel is both cozy and inviting for very few people, and totally adaptable for large groups. Bergman has held fundraisers for nonprofits such as Vashon Opera and Vashon Allied Arts and politicos such as U.S. Senators Patty Murrayand Maria Cantwell and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Outside are beautifully landscaped terraced gardens and a four-stall barn.
The home has been maintained in immaculate condition, “like I would have lived there always,” Bergman said. But the two kids are grown, and life changes.
“We have a place in Palm Desert where we spend half the year,” he says.
He has a 77-foot Nordlund yacht in Lake Union that will serve as their Seattle home.
Bergman, nationally known for his work on behalf of asbestos victims, is senior partner of the Seattle-based law firm of Bergman Draper Oslund.
“I started as a baby associate lawyer for Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe in Seattle, taking the 5:30 boat every morning and keeping my nose to the grindstone. I wanted to be a courtroom lawyer, so I switched to the plaintiff side and started representing asbestos victims. Eventually I started my own law firm, still kept my nose to the grindstone and developed expertise. Life improved,” he said. “It never came easy, but if life comes easy you wouldn’t really appreciate it.”
He is also an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist in areas of higher education.
Ten years ago he was the sole funder of a project that built two schools for girls in one of the poorest tribes in Eastern Africa. His Maasai Children’s Initiative focused on educating girls in the Maasai tribe of Kenya.
He is a trustee of Reed College and active in supporting Democratic politics.
And he is a respected art collector, with a remarkable collection of the works of renowned artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves and Mark Tobey, some of which his grandmother collected in the 1940s and which he considerably expanded on over the decades.
Bergman remembers the leaner times well, when he originally moved to Vashon in 1991.
“We wanted to raise our kids in the country and maybe have horses,” he said.
At that time, home was a double-wide mobile home. “I’d walk up the hill and look over the bay and think how amazing it would be to have a house there some day.”
After six years in the double-wide, he built a home on that property and stayed for six years until the ten acres became available where his estate is now. He jumped at the chance to buy the acreage, and completed the current home in 2006.
Bergman loves how the house plays to his extensive art selections, including some 3,000-year-old antiquities.
“I love how it is married to my art collection,” says Bergman. “We built the house around the art.”
Does some of the art go with the house?
“I negotiate for a living,” he said, laughing.
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