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Trial and error is no way to build a log home. William and Linda Butin weren't willing to wait until their retirement home was built to see how it would turn out. They used a store-bought CAD program and a scale model to make sure their home would fit them--and their challenging site--like a glove. In 1997, the couple bought a secluded lot in an exclusive Colorado gold community on the easter slope of the Rockies, 8,200 feet above sea level. They planned to build their retirement home there a year later. The only problem: they had to plan it from almost 6,000 miles away. The Butins were living in Tokyo, where William was president for Shell Oil CO. Japan. They were up to the challenge of a long-distance design and as far as they were concerned, the sky was the limit When they returned to the States, handcrafted log producer Log Knowledge, Inc. helped the couple launch their dreams. The result is a log home that marries traditional American construction with Asian influences. A
Tale of Two Lots When it cam time to build their log home, however, William and Linda couldn't pass up the opportunity to build less than 10 miles away in the Fox Acres Country Club. "Bill is closer to his golfing this way and I'm a city girl so it suited me better to live in a community setting," Linda says. The first order of business was to convince the developer to let them build with logs. "A log home didn't fit the original vision for the architecture he wanted in the community," William says. The developer agreed to let the Butins build their log home there with two stipulations: they couldn't build it on the golf course or on the road. "For us it was like throwing Brer Rabbit in the briar patch," William says. "We didn't want our home to be on the golf course or the road anyway." William now splits fishing time between the lake on his uncle's property and the 11 lakes that dot the Fox Acres community. "If Linda wants fish for dinner, I can take the golf cart to the lake and bring back trout--if they're biting," William says. "It's a two -minute trip in a golf cart. The
Complete Package
The couple also liked the idea of using handcrafted logs as opposed to milled logs, but they weren't sure about chinking at first. "Bill's uncle's log home had dark logs and white chinking," Linda says. "I didn't want that look where it's like a layer cake with icing between each log." Fortunately Log Knowledge offers several chinking options, so the Butins chose chinking that complements their logs. Tan chinking blends with the logs on the exterior, while buff colored interior chinking offers a subtle color variation. Lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce logs averaging 12 inches in diameter were used interchangeably in the walls while logs with a minimum 14" diameter and up to 40' in length frame the roof system over the main living areas. Circle
Gets a Square "The subdivision gave everyone circle lots. I've never seen anything like that before," Log Knowledge designer Jerry Kommrusch says. "The house ended up real close to the boundaries. It's a big house so we were working within feet, if not inches. It was pretty tight." In November 2000 the Butins broke ground, "and boy did we break ground," William says. More than 100 dynamite charges were set to prepare the site for construction. "It was like a war zone," William says. "When we first saw it we thought, 'What did we do?' But now you'd never be able to tell we did anything to the land. It was a painful process though." Even with that amount of blasting, more demolition had to be done. "The blasting didn't create small enough pieces," Fogelson says. "The excavator had to manually break the rocks into usable material. Some were still the size of a car. It was certainly a mess for a while." But in the end, all the hard work paid off.
"There was a tremendous amount of ground work to prepare for
the construction of this home," Fogelson says. "The result,
though, is that the home fits the property like a glove." Road
Bumps No home project ever goes off without a hitch. When the Butins moved into their home in June of 2002, finish work was still being completed. "The subcontractors became like family," Linda says. "They would let us know when they were coming and we'd leave the door open for them. It got to the point where I was making lunch for them." It
wasn't all bad. This was the Butins were able to oversee much of
the finish work. "It was nothing that was going to cause too
much disruption," William says. "I'm not going to say
it was Asian
Influence "I knew I didn't want a typical southwestern style or heavy pine furniture," Linda says. "People who have seen our home say it totally destroyed their image of what a log home has to be." But the Butins were careful not to go overboard. "It's not what you put into a house, it's how you place it," Linda says. "We collected so many things from overseas, but the house isn't supposed to be a showroom, it is a home." Perhaps the most unique feature is the tatami room off the kitchen on the main level. "It's a traditional all-purpose room in most Japanese homes," Linda says. "You can use it for eating meditating or just relaxing." The room was designed around tatami mats handmade for the Butins' project. "They are very dense mats," Fogelson says. "They're about 3" thick and they are set into a framed-out floor system." A keyaki (Japanese elm) table sits about a foot off the floor in the center of the room and a hole in the floor below the table provides leg room. It was a curious sight for neighbors who walked by during construction. "People passing by would ask the construction crew when they were going to fill in that hole," Linda says. "They would have to explain that it's supposed to be there." Other touches like Asian artwork and shoji (rice paper) doors are fond reminders of the couple's time in Japan. Each subtle accent makes the home that much more special. "The combination of Japanese flair with a log structure--we don't get to do that every day," Fogelson says. "They built a beautiful home." |
PERSONALIZED
PLANS 
"Once
we found Log Knowledge, we didn't have to do anymore research,"
William says. "They knew everything about log construction,
they offered their own general contractor and they were just 45
minutes away from the job site. They were the right company for
the job."
peaches
and cream, but once you get what you want, the bad memories fade.
It was about as painless as it could be for the magnitude of our
project."