Legendary Nike Designer Tinker Hatfield’s Oregon House Is Infused with Cowboy Style

To sneakerheads and design junkies, Tinker Hatfield needs no introduction. The visionary Nike designer was a pole vaulter on the track team coached by brand co-founder Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon before he started as Nike’s corporate architect in the early ‘80s. On a whim, he entered a company-wide competition for an innovative shoe concept.

“I performed well enough so they called me in to meet with the head of design. They said, ‘Hey, we don’t need an architect, we need a shoe designer,’” he says. “‘And you are it.’”

Four decades later, Hatfield has created many of the most iconic Air Jordans the world has worn and loved, and helped build Nike into a global powerhouse. He is an idea machine, a legend, and, if you’re hired to help build his mountain house in Bend, Oregon, also one heck of a client to please.

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“It’s not normal for me to have a client that’s a certified architect and designer who just throws quirky ideas at you left and right,” says Sarah Westhusing, the founder of House of Milo, the full-service interior design firm charged with interpreting the Hatfields’ Will Rogers Ranch-inspired vision for the custom, ground-up build on a triangular lot near the center of town. “He just geeks out on this stuff.”

“And they really pushed us out of our comfort zone with color,” says House of Milo senior designer Emily Abassian. “That’s not our first instinct. But we balanced out the bold color with plenty of stone and wood.”

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Hatfield and his wife, Jackie, raised their three daughters in Portland with the kind of gusto you’d expect from a creative polymath (and three-sport athlete) father and an outdoorsy mother who dreamed of being a camp director. Now their grandchildren are the beneficiaries of their boundless energy—and their multiple houses, which include a beach house in Encinitas, a lake retreat in Idaho, and this creative family home in Bend.

“We’ve loved trying to balance how friendship and family and architecture blend and help each other out,” says Tinker. “That is the number-one priority for us. Even though I’m still busy at Nike, I’m less busy than I used to be, and we spend a lot of time triangulating between three pods of grandchildren. It’s a great setup in Bend because they’re right across the street from us.”

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Westhusing has been a part of the extended Hatfield clan since she roomed with one of their daughters in college in Colorado. As a Bend local, she understands the way people want to live in the outdoor wonderland she calls home.

“It’s a town where you can surf the river wave in the morning, or go for a trail run just 10 minutes from your house. Then you can drive 30 minutes up to the mountain to ski,” she says. “It has that small-town feel that’s really healthy and calming. Also, it’s a vacation town. When you’re here, everything feels fun and light. From the breweries to floating the river to the mountain, everything is built with relaxation and fun in mind.”

Fun was at the top of the priority list when Tinker was sketching multiple concepts and iterations of the design on his iPad, all of which Jackie quickly declined.

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“One of the designs was a concept for a long building with a vineyard planted on the roof,” says Tinker. “You need about 28 inches of soil and plenty of water to do it, which was available on this site. It was modern with a slight industrial tinge, and about 200 feet long. That was the design I liked the most. It took her 2 minutes and 59 seconds to reject it.”

It was only when he fully relented to his wife’s inner camp counselor, and channeled the playful energy of the iconic 31-room Will Rogers Ranch in the Pacific Palisades near the Los Angeles coast that everything finally clicked.

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“If I was going to get the design over the hump, it had to be more about her and how she grew up,” he realized. “She’s from Chicago, but worked as a counselor at a camp in Colorado and always had a great affinity for the mountains and the Western lifestyle. As we traveled about, we’d go to Los Angeles, and we always had fun at the Will Rogers house. [It was] an amazing thing sitting up there among the Hollywood people—a little out of place but in a beautiful way. So this design came out of desperation. I wouldn’t normally think about a ranch house, but I drew this up in 2020 with a Will Rogers infusion. And she went for it.”

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Tragically, the original house was destroyed in the 2025 Palisades fire. But the spirit of the former vaudeville and Western star’s home lives on at the Hatfields’ house in Bend. There is a long, covered porch with rocking chairs, plenty of cheeky cowboy flair in the art and accents, and big outdoor entertaining spaces with a hot tub and pool, a pizza oven, and a steel roping bull. Every corner is put to use.

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“There’s a bar under the stairs. We put outlets all over the house for people to sit and work,” says Abassian. “Jackie wanted a long island to serve pancakes to the kids. We wanted the kitchen to look old school, with glossed brick tile and some heavy-duty metal wrapped shelves.”

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There’s a large, central great room adjacent to the kitchen, where Tinker likes to sit and admire the view through the large windows; several guest rooms; and a playful bunkroom awash with vibrant chartreuse and bright blue.

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“We had to install outlets outside for microphones out front. Jackie likes to organize skits with her grandkids and put on plays,” says Emily. “When they had their move-in party, they invited the contractors and family and friends to come celebrate. They were all dressed up like cowboys.”

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“We wanted people to walk in and want to be a kid again,” says Westhusing, who then adds her spin on the famous Nike slogan. “So we just went for it.”

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