Project Gallery

Carpenter Residence

Nancy and Jim Carpenter have an admirable commitment to sustainability. When they approached us about their timber frame house, they made their primary goal clear: Make the house as "green" as possible. Although it will currently serve as a vacation home, their long-term goal is to retire to this dream home once they're done running Wild Birds Unlimited from their current location in Indiana.

Our most noticeable contribution to their goal of sustainability came in timber selection. Eighty-five percent of the timber for this house was locally harvested white fir. The cost of the wood is actually comparatively low, and the short distance we needed to transport it helped make its environmental footprint negligible.

We believe that one of the most critical aspects of building sustainably is designing buildings for long life. We relentlessly pursued construction details in this timber frame house in order to bring the goal of long building life into reality.

This house was originally designed with timber elements but was not technically a timber frame structure.  Our design followed the basic layout of the original, but we reorganized the beams and posts in the home so that the timber frame worked nicely. Piece size and length were structured as much as possible around local availability, and as with all of our timber frames, we designed it so that future shrinkage would not compromise the structure. 

At our suggestion, the design also grew to include many organic (naturally curved) pieces.  Most of those we used have no other commercial value, and would have been burned as slash in the woods or cut up and sold as firewood. In the right hands, they're beautiful, always completely unique, and make the finished timber frame home truly one of a kind. We also collaborated with the architects to reorganize the loft so that structural members could transfer loads directly to foundation. Building with Douglas fir beams would have been easier in some sense, but we're convinced that being residential sustainable builders in Colorado means finding a way to use local materials.

Additional stories abound in this cabin retreat for Jim and Nancy. The lot is part of the 10,000-acre Phantom Canyon Ranch. It's one of the only building sites in northern Colorado we've ever been on that doesn't have a single view of another building.

This timber frame structure is one of our favorites to date. All the organic curves come from a lifetime assortment of wood that we purchased after the sudden death of a collector. His dream of a house in Colorado will come to life in new form, held together by pegs we're making from salvaged trees that were blown down in the Windsor tornado of May 2008.

Did Nancy and Jim think we hit the mark with their timber frame house? We'll let them tell you.

"Watching our house take shape exceeded all our expectations! First of all, your crew is extremely professional and skilled and just plain nice people to get to know! You all worked together like a well-oiled machine, and there was genuine respect among all of you."

"Secondly, the way your craftsmanship and the gorgeous wood worked together in harmony was a thing of beauty. The precise way it all went together was almost beyond comprehension! Yours and their passion give the house a special soul that will always be there, I think."

[read full testimonial]

Location: Larimer County, CO
Architect: Terra Verde, Boulder, CO
General Contractor: Merten Inc., Boulder, CO
Frame Design: Monolithic Building Services Jackson, NH/Lost Bent Woodworking, Riner, VA

[See a video of this raising!]