Black Forest Timber Homestead

Ian bought this piece of ground — hundreds of acres of it — as a young man, and dreamed on it for years. When it came time to build, he acted as his own builder, pulling the permit himself as owner-builder, and brought our crew in to build the entire shell: all of the framing, all of the log and timber fabrication and installation, and the windows.

The vision, beautifully captured by Mark Nelson Architects, was a homestead that would stand for two hundred years — the settler’s aesthetic of the old West, carried on modern bones.

The wood is the story. We brought timber down from British Columbia by truck, and — working with Ian and his ranch manager — felled several hundred ponderosa pines on the property itself. Our own sawmill operation milled them into homesteader-cut slabs, which were stickered and left to season in the shade for eight months before we fashioned them into the home’s exterior and interior siding. This house is, quite literally, built from the land it stands on.

We were on site for a full year, and Andy got to know the family well. A bespoke, concierge project, start to finish.