For two weekends every summer, visitors make quick work of scoping out Central Oregon’s homes during the Central Oregon Builders Association Tour of Homes, a public peek inside houses ranging from a 400-square-foot tiny house to energy-efficient homes in NorthWest Crossing to manses in the Tetherow area and beyond.

A house shown Sunday on NW Kingston Avenue in Bend was inspired by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright — the outdoor spaces were designed to mesh with indoor ones, and narrow windows at the top of the building let in ambient light.

Because the roof is flat, those windows don’t get direct sunlight, said Andrea Hamblen, operations manager for Arbor Builders.

“I think one of the questions we get is why we built a flat roof,” Hamblen said.

She said that although the roof’s flat design had stylistic roots, it was designed to hold twice the amount of record snowfall that has fallen in Bend in the past 20 years.

Closer to downtown, several units in the Basecamp townhomes on SW Wall Street were open for viewing and crawling with visitors scoping out the studio apartments on the ground floor and the floor-to-ceiling windows. The distinctive design and features of the units appeared to draw interest from the public Sunday, and brokers said a decent amount of people who came to see the units Sunday came over from the Willamette Valley.

One section of the development was recently finished, and there are plans to round out the development with several more units, which will surround a communal picnic and barbecue area, said Sonja Porter, a broker with Cascade Sotheby’s.

Windows on the top floor of one of the units offered expansive views of the Cascades.

Porter said many of the home’s features were designed to be adaptable to the owner’s taste, and that the studio on the ground floor can be used by the owner or rented out to tenants for 30 days or longer.

Another Cascade Sotheby’s broker, Betsey Little, said she spoke with people who’d moved to Central Oregon several years ago and bought homes outside of Bend and on its outskirts. Now that Bend has more amenities in the city and is more walkable and bikeable, she thinks more people are interested in living closer to downtown.

“It’s now bringing people into the city,” Little said.

Nathanael Werner was looking at Basecamp with his father and mother, who’d recently moved from the San Diego area. Werner, an architect who lives in Bend, said he likes to come to the Tour of Homes when he can to see what is being built.

“I think what’s enjoyable this year is the variety,” Werner said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0376, cwithycombe@bendbulletin.com