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Family Tradition
Timber Homes Illustrated,
October 2001
Written by Colleen Morrissey | Photography by Roger Wade
A timber framer follows in his grandfather's footsteps.
A Navajo rug, collected from one of Frank's grandfather's many travels to the Southwest, decorates the space in between two posts in the great room. Brenda decorated the home using a combination of family heirlooms and furnishings with an emphasis on casual comfort.
Some things run in families. For Brenda and Frank Baker, it's timber framing. The tradition started in 1948, when Frank's grandfather, Frank Peter Baker, built a timber-frame home from salvaged oak timbers on the family farm.
Frank spent his entire youth in that home. As he got older, he harbored fond memories of the old homestead, which was the gathering spot for his family during the holidays for nearly 45 years. "That house had no drywall or painted walls; everything was wood or stone or brick," he says. "When you went into that house, it was like going into the womb. The timber frame defined the rooms and gave it a special warmth."
"What we've done is borrow from this old architecture. Both types of homes have timber-frame trusses and a lot of wood in them.
Frank left the family farm to become an engineer with General Motors in the early 1970s, just as the energy crisis hit. "I was responsible for learning all about these issues," he says. "So when it came time to build my own house, I wanted to incorporate everything I had learned about energy-efficient, ecologically sound building systems into our own home. My grandfather's timber frame fit that bill real nicely."
After traveling extensively researching the history and engineering behind timber framing, Frank and Brenda decided they had learned enough to build one themselves. Their first foray was a historic reproduction of a Dutch gambrel. "We tried to capture the style, feel and character of my grandfather's home when we built that first house," Frank says.
He also saw an opportunity to fulfill a growing demand for energy-saving, environmentally sensitive structures. So, that same year, Frank and Brenda started Riverbend Timber Framing Inc.
Fortunately, Frank's grandfather lived long enough to see what he started come full circle. "My grandfather was flattered by the fact that we had that much interest in his home and wanted to capture its feel in our own and make a business out of it," Frank says. "Initially, however, he thought I was nuts to leave a good job at General Motors to work on something like this.
As the business flourished, Frank and Brenda decided they needed a house to showcase the skill of Riverbend's craftspeople. So along Michigan's historic Raisin River they built "Pleasant Meadow," a 4,931 square-foot home just like Frank's grandfather's, with oak posts and beams, pegs and mortise-and-tenon joinery.
Unlike his grandfather's house, though, Frank's home resembles the Craftsman-style homes of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Japanese-inspired post-and-beam bungalows designed by Henry and Charles Greene. "What we've done," says the couple's architect, Rodney Pfotenhauer of The Housing Associates in Toledo, Ohio, "is borrow from this old architecture. Both types of homes have timber-frame trusses and a lot of wood in them. They are a lot more subtle in their design than what we find in Frank and Brenda's home, but that was the premise."
A defining characteristic of those styles of homes was an expansive front porch to greet visitors. "Porches were a feature of almost all Arts and Crafts and bungalow-style homes," Frank says. "They were meant to be cozy and inviting."
Exposing timber elements on these porches was also typical of the style, so Rodney designed a mammoth queen-post truss with curved kneebraces and through tenons for the porch. It not only keeps the porch protected from the elements, but also gives passersby some indication of the type of structure that ties beyond the front door.
Originally, Frank wasn't keen on this idea, preferring a plain exterior. "Frank wanted people to go into the house, see the timber frame and all the wide open spaces," Rodney says, "and have an almost religious experience when they saw the frame." Because this home was meant to be a showpiece for the company, though, Rodney convinced Frank and Brenda that the exterior should announce what was going on inside their home, not hide it. |
