We pick up the thread upon Ralph’s arrival in Anchorage in 1959. It wasn’t long before he was designing his first house in Anchorage. This led him [more quickly than he wanted] to other work and establishing his methods and approach to designing for Alaska.

First house by Ralph Alley in Alaska, Anchorage Hillside. Shown in 2004 — by then, the house had been repainted with the new color palette bearing little resemblance to the original.

House on Stanford Dr. in 2016. The entry is a recent addition; otherwise the house still looks about like it did upon completion in 1960.

We’re planning to do as many episodes, more or less weekly as necessary to cover Ralph’s thirty years in Alaska. This first one was technologically challenging for a couple of non-audio engineers, so kindly ignore the poltergeists on the recording and trust that we’ll figure out how to get this aspect corrected in the future! Enjoy!