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Field of Dreams
Timber Frame Homes, 1999
Written by Mary Charest Iorio | Photography by Roger Wade
A rural timber frame provides simple pleasures
Less than 30 minutes from the arena that houses the Detroit Pistons, along a dirt road that extends for five miles, lies 76 acres of prime Michigan woods and farmland. It could well be a million miles away. Deer wander the fields in the early morning hours, fox hunters in full regalia gallop past each fall and children run and play on wide-open land.
The property -- far from the crowded highways and factories of metro Detroit -- is known as the Second Chance Farm. Its name is more than appropriate. Before Michelle and Rick Donaldson purchased it, squirrels and birds inhabited its tiny, rundown farmhouse. Forty willow trees choked a roadside pond. And no corn, beans or tomatoes grew in the fields.
In July 1995, the Donaldsons tamed the wild terrain and gave the land a new beginning, raising the first post of what would become a mammoth, timber skeleton climbing high above the horizon. For a month that summer, each day's twilight reflected off the rafters, setting the frame aglow as the evening sky changed from blue to pink to gray.
"A timber frame just seemed like an old way of doing something," Michelle says. "You see the beams, and they are the actual core of the house. They are the structure holding the whole thing up."
Like the property's original barn, the Donaldsons' new home would be a white maple timber frame, harkening back to a time when life seemed simpler. The structure went up in one week, from stacked piles of precut timbers to a cleanly configured jigsaw puzzle-turned house.
Driving the first wooden peg culminated a year of research and design work by the Donaldsons. They wanted modern conveniences but not at the expense of the property's earthy freshness. They turned to Riverbend Timber Framing Inc. of Blissfield, Michigan.
Riverbend transformed the Donaldsons' scrawled drawings into customized architectural designs. "We worked with their preliminary sketches," says Connie Seiser, regional project coordinator for Riverbend, "and then it was a matter of fine-tuning the bathrooms and how open the kitchen, great room and dining room would be."
The four-bedroom house includes three full baths, two fireplaces, a large loft, a basement family room with bar, an exercise room and sauna and several offices and craft rooms. Angled ceilings upstairs provide space for unusual nooks and cozy reading lofts. On the first floor, the great room rises 26 feet and brings together two roof lines at a cross. The design required an intricate quad-gable roof system, where the two roof lines intersect and a series of rafters come together.
"The timbers come all cut, like Lincoln logs," Michelle explains. On those hot July days, a team of five men assembled each segment on the ground. Then, a crane operator lifted the massive pieces into place. Kiln- dried wooden pegs connect the mortise- and-tenon joinery.
The workers were incredible," Rick recalls. "They were hanging upside down, driving pegs from all sorts of angles."
The Donaldsons celebrated the frame's completion with a party, complete with tractors, a bonfire and a bluegrass band. 'We put a pine bough at the highest point of the house to pay homage to the trees used from the forest," Connie says.
Then the enclosing began, a process that typically takes anywhere from two to eight weeks depending on the size of the house. The couple's 4,000-square-foot home took about a month to enclose with Insulspan structural insulated panels. Riverbend pre-cut the window and door openings and finished the panel interiors with drywall. The Donaldsons chose roof panels finished inside with tongue-and-groove knotty pine for the ceilings.
Builder Tom Derocher of Rochester Hills, Michigan, took over once the house was enclosed. "We do the complete design," Connie says. "We cut and assemble the frame and enclose the whole structure. But then the builder actually comes in and finishes the house." The builder's responsibility ranges from constructing interior walls and positioning cabinets to installing all the mechanical systems.
"When you select a builder, he has to understand that what he is building is different," Michelle says. 'It has a lot of tiny, special details." Because of the Donaldsons' wide-open floor plan, few walls actually rise two levels. That left "the plumber, the heating contractor and the electrician all competing for space," Rick says. "They were actually feuding over the space because there are so few interior walls for duct work and pipes."
The Donaldsons paid close attention to details as well. While most of the home features oak floors, Michelle chose large Italian tile for the sunroom and the master bath. In the kitchen, she sprinkled tiles painted with images of fresh garden vegetables amidst the plain white farmhouse tile.
The kitchen cabinet doors alternate between wood and glass, and a roll-top appliance garage hides a gourmet coffeemaker. The enormous island provides both a work space and room for the whole family to eat casual dinners. It is topped with gray-, brown- and white- speckled granite, and houses not one but two dishwashers. Michelle's professional stove lets her boil a pot of homemade soup while cooking simultaneously on five other burners. Open spaces above the cabinets hold baskets Michelle makes herself.
In the great room, windows climb to the roof, bringing in the morning sun and On a neighboring wall, a fieldstone fireplace extends from floor to ceiling. Michelle chose natural tones from the fireplace stone-a light teal blue, soft rose and cream-as the main colors for the house. The colors repeat in the great room's leather furnishings and the sunroom's paintings.
Preferring outdoor work to indoor construction, Rick dug up boulders to build raised perennial beds behind the house. He laid seven tons of flagstone for a backyard patio and even cleared and restored the pond. Once they moved in, he dug a huge vegetable garden for Michelle and set out seats, benches and hammocks around the property. But, making the house a home means the work continues. "We have plenty of seats," Michelle laughs. "But no time to sit down -- there's so much to do."
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