A NEIGHBORHOOD FOURSQUARE

Despite good bones, the house built in 1900 “was in very poor condition,” says Aaron Pempel, who’d long wanted to restore a rundown house. “The first floor had been used as commercial office space without a kitchen or bath; the second floor was residential.” Indeed, the interior was a forlorn mashup, made worse by the building sitting vacant. The Nike executive had discovered the abandoned house in the same Northwest Portland (Oregon) neighborhood where he and his wife, Kristen, and their son live.

By coincidence, interior designer