9,200 sq-ft log home, plus older guest house behind
For Sale: $2,999,000
Posted on 08/09/2009 1:17:25 PM PDT by jay1949
Featuring log buildings presently under re-construction at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. This provides a good look at how such buildings were made.
(Excerpt) Read more at backcountrynotes.com ...
ping
(hope this works)
For Sale: $2,999,000
I have a well worn and dog eared copy of a neat little book entitled “How to Build and Furnish a Log Cabin, by W. Ben Hunt (Collier Books)..
I used it to build a 28’x16’ one room vacation cabin in Texas 30+ years ago..added a 10x16’ kitchen two years later ten a 16x20 bedroom two years after that.
I had a great crew of friends who early on camped in their own tents, and worked their butts off..
A fellow asked me a few years after the project was complete “ Just how much you have in this thing?..
I thought for a minute and replied “ About $20,000 in materials and $30,00 in beer and brisket”..
That was a pretty accurate assessment according to my wife...
/johnny
Nice post. Thanks.
I live in a neighborhood in WI where reconstructed antique log homes sit side by side new Georgian colonials that sell in the $2M range. Within a mile around me there are reconstructed Scandinavian and German log homes, original 1840s log homes (English) with siding over the logs so you can’t tell they are log homes until you go in the attic, new log homes, and lots and lots of McMansions happily co-existing in the same neighborhood.
On my corner someone has just poured several hundred thou into reconstructing a 1929 brick schoolhouse. It’s gorgeous! I never would have imagined it. They are getting ready to move in soon, and I’m going to bake something to take to the homeowner just for another peek inside.
I thought that old schoolhouse was a lost cause (it had suffered a bad remodel previously and was on a terrible corner with bad ingress/egress). This new owner gutted the structure, regraded the lot, added a garage where none was before and duplicated the design and the roofline of the building — including matching the brick. She invited me in, and I can’t tell you how different the place looked inside with beautiful, sunny vistas out the windows.
The new grading makes the lot and the new garage accessible in the winter which is severe here.
Funny . . . Freepers seem to have a liking for log cabins and such things.
The Frontier Culture Museum is a great place to visit. We’ve been there 3 times over the years and it never fails to be a source of ideas and inspiration for me. Go in either the spring, fall or early winter and you’ll think you are taking a walk down a lane in the “old country”.
By the 1840s, siding - - usually called “sheathing” - - was very often used on log houses to protect the timbers from weather. Sometimes sheathing or siding was added to a cabin which didn’t have that feature originally, often in the course of adding on a new “crib” (or “pen”) to the home. It had a lot to do with the building of water-powered sawmills and, thus, the availability of inexpensive sawn boards (which one didn’t have to make by hand with a froe and mallet). Many log houses built in the 1840s and later are erroneously “restored” so that the exterior of the timbers is exposed, the restorer thinking that the siding was an afterthought. Log houses which were not originally sheathed are usually recognizable because they were painted, most often with red iron oxide and lead barn paint. Log structures which were neither sheathed nor painted suffered a very high loss rate owing to rot and insect infestation.
Modern restorers have treatments available which will help protect exposed logs of renovated vintage cabins, but these can be ineffectual if not renewed regularly. The effectiveness of those treatments is often negated by the use of concrete in place of chinking and daubing; concrete inevitably permits moisture to invade the timbers. There is a once-fine cabin in Abingdon, Virginia, which has suffered more deterioration in the 20-odd years since it was “restored” than it had in the 200 or so years of its prior existence; see http://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/7/18/log-houses-of-abingdon-virginia.html (Alexander Breckinridge House).
This area was not settled until 1832, although French trappers, traders, and explorers were here earlier. But they left nothing more than trading posts along the way. So, the earliest log contruction would have been around 1832-1840.
The houses of that era were tiny and have been added to many times over the years. One of the more interesting ones is a tiny little house on the river across from cit hall called “Settlers Cottage”. It was of English construction and actually was covered in stucco — so highly unusual for this area that it has been preserved and restored as part of a tiny park.
When we moved here (22 years ago), we had a difficult time finding a house, as there had been a building slump for a number of years before we relocated. My husband came first and would fly me out to look at houses after he’d lined up a few. The good ones were selling fast, however. One time he flew me out to see a big white colonial on 5 acres with a gigantic barn. When I asked him the age (I didn’t really want another project at the time) he sort of mumbled something unintelligible that I thought sounded like 1958. When I questioned him he admitted that the date of construction was 1858, but “It has been restored.”
Yes, it had been restored up unto an inch of its life, complete with a lovely 2 story master bedroom wing out the back. I loved the house until I realized that everything had already been done to it that possibly could have been done (no room for improvement) and that one of my sons couldn’t get into the bedrooms without ducking. Furthermore, my antique armoires would not fit in the bedrooms because the ceilings were the full gable and the side walls were short.
Then I went into the attic and saw the hand hewn logs! I fell in love with it then and was very tempted. I realized that the “ship lap” siding was nailed over a log structure. If the ceilings upstairs had been taller, I would be living there now. *sigh*
Another interesting log house in my neighborhood is one directly across the road. It is a rare VERTICAL log house. I’m told that it was dismantled from some place up north — possibly Norwegian originally — numbered and reconstructed here. In order to satisfy City restrictions, the owners had to add square footage and they added a kitchen wing and a large sunroom across the back and a laundry room. I think the miniumum square footage allowed here is 2500 sq. ft. THey blended the new areas very nicely. Even the interior walls are vertical logs.
Now, that’s unusual. I wonder how they kept everything in place during construction.
I dunno. Never thought about it. The house wasn’t there when I made the offer on this house, and it was already half up when I moved in 5 months later. I was shocked, to say the least! Mainly the shock was that a huge blue tarp was hanging over part of the roof and down the front. Having just come from a place (Washington State) where my neighbor annoyed me with blue tarps draped everywhere, I thought I had morphed into some Sci Fi flick where blue tarps were chasing me, chasing me.
But, the tarp was gone soon and the new neighbors were nice. The house was written up in the paper and received a lot of attention. Unfortunately, those folks picked up and moved to WY, or MT, soon to take a job at a university; and I never heard from them again. I’m sure they were liberals, LOL.
She held an open house for some of the ladies in the neighbohood when the home was finished, and it was lovely. They made one huge mistake, IMO. We had a terrible drought the spring and summer after I moved here (1998) and it was unseasonally hot the day of her open house. Because of the sun room attached to the back (facing due south) the heat just poured in, and it was unbearable. My makeup was literally rolling off my face! It never occurred to these people to install some kind of AC in this very “tight” house, and the sun space really boosted the temperature in July. According to the owner who had built the place, after living in a 100 year old restored Victorian for 10 years, “We never had AC before and don’t see any reason for it now.”
Well, after living in a leaky old Victorian, they were unprepared for a weather tight log home. I could see where the AC duct work could have been installed so easily during reconstruction without destroying the architectural integrity, or charm, of the house. But now it was too late.
When I got back across the street to my own house that morning (which was only HALF air-conditioned, btw) I felt like I was walking into a deep freeze, by comparison. We have since installed AC in the parts of our house that had none when we replaced a furnace. I do understand where Pam was coming from because we actually don’t use AC much in south eastern WI. But when you need it, you really need it.
I don’t know what the 2nd owners have done. They are not friendly and do not associate with anyone in the neighborhood. They are probably just sitting over there sweating under a portable fan! LOL.
“I don’t know what the 2nd owners have done. They are not friendly and do not associate with anyone in the neighborhood. They are probably just sitting over there sweating under a portable fan! LOL.”
Maybe the upright logs create a stockade-like atmosphere which they find to their liking.
That and their huge dog that used to terrorize the neighborhood.
Thanks for the ping!
I have three articles in process on the American log cabin/log houses at Frontier Culture Museum; also, one on the German farm - - be glad to ping them for you
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