When I was in college I worked for a summer in Glacier National Park for the company that ran the grand old lodges at Many Glacier, Lake McDonald, and East Glacier. I loved those magnificent european inspired holdovers from the great Railroad travel era. I was pretty much in awe of the fireplace at Lake McDonald Lodge at the southern entrance to the park. The fireplace opening was so big at 6’6″ tall you could stand up in it. I’d never seen anything like it… and they kept a fire going in it all year round! Now, that’s a fireplace! When it came time to design the Great Room fireplace for the Timber Trails residence, my thoughts returned to Lake McDonald. Online research turned up other inspirations of many shapes… perhaps cousins if only in size to the one at Glacier. So inspired, we put pencil to paper and came up with this fireplace which, although large enough to stand up in, is sized and shaped to best compliment the room in which it stands. Benches on either side of the fireplace will provide a wonderful warm niche on a snowy day. Even though this fireplace is an original design, its inspiration is firmly rooted in the past. In design, nothing is truly new and credit is always to be shared with those who came before.

About a decade ago my brother and I bought 2 lots in the Highlands Development in Breckenridge. On one of them we decided to build a spec home.  We needed a design concept and the one I came up with involved a story. After all, I did come from the movie business, and a good movie (or project) always begins with a good story. The story of this house would be this:  Once upon a time around the early 1900s a man named Caleb (don’t ask me why his name was Caleb, it just popped into my head) decided to build a home for himself. He’d been building homes for other people all his life, and now it was his turn. Caleb was a saver. Over the years after each project he had taken the leftover materials, beams, siding, boards, and saved them in a big pile behind his tiny cabin. Until one day he decided he had enough of these leftovers to build an entire house.

So, with Caleb’s Journey I first began to design and build using reclaimed and recycled materials. The result was fantastic. Not only were we doing something good for the environment, but the reclaimed siding made the garage doors look fantastic and truly original.  The reclaimed flooring and ceiling cladding gave the interior great depth of character. I’ll talk more about my use of reclaimed materials in later postings, but here’s some photos of the home we called Caleb’s Journey.

Over the past decade we’ve seen the cost of construction rise steadily until two years ago, when sub contractor labor rates flattened and then began to decline. From a pricing standpoint, this is certainly the best time to build a mountain house in years. What kind of savings are we looking at?  My estimate based on current quotes from subcontractors would be 12-15% although the amount could be higher depending on materials and construction methods employed. In real terms, that’s enough savings to pay to furnish the home, and add a solar array for sustainable energy independence. Bottom line. If you’re thinking of building your dream home, despite what all the economic pessimists might have to say, this industry expert believes the time to begin design is NOW!