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Woodland Jewel
Timber Homes Illustrated,
June 2002
Written by Colleen Morrissey | Photography by Roger Wade
A Michigan lakeside home makes the perfect rustic retreat.
A timber-framed octagon supports the roof over one section of the great room that faces Lake Michigan. The octagon's decorative boss pin, which holds this elaborate timber frame design together, is suspended by triangulation.
The owners of this distinctive-looking home had long been interested in having a summer place on Lake Michigan. When several lots opened up on a previously unavailable stretch of shoreline, the couple jumped at the chance to own a home along the water.
They chose a timber-frame home for the property after admiring a friend's place that had been built by Riverbend Timber Framing of Blissfield, Michigan. After working with a local architect to hammer out the details for a vacation home that could be used year-round, the owner says, "We fiddled with the plan ourselves for a while and then we gave it to Riverbend, who took it and ran with it."
Riverbend's Jim Balmer designed the frame to fit the couple's floor plan. "I did bubble diagrams and sketches to show them what the frame was going to look like," he explains.
The design process lasted about a year. When the plans had been finished, Jim handed the blueprints over to Stewart Elliot, a project coordinator at Riverbend. Stewart worked with the couple's builder, Easling Construction Company of Leland, Michigan, to raise the frame properly. In just about three weeks, the three-story, 6,735 square-foot timber-frame home (including insulated wall and roof panels) was closed-in and ready to be finished.
The home was built to accommodate guests, especially grandchildren. It features four bedrooms, including two on the lower level with their own private baths where the kids make their home while visiting. The couple also placed a family room on this level so that the children can entertain themselves while the adults chat in the upstairs great room. To give the kids easy access to the outdoors, this level was designed as a walkout basement protected by a covered patio.
Visitors entering the home find themselves engulfed in the warmth of wood. Starting in the entryway, tongue-and-groove pine and fir paneling covers all of the interior walls, while down below rough-sawn maple tops the floors. "The couple wanted a wood look on the inside," says Jim, "to complement the Douglas fir frame. The paneling has a similar color and grain pattern."
The focal point of the great room is the home's round-stone, wood burning fireplace. The gray and putty colored stones blend in naturally with the light tones of the home's Douglas fir frame and all-wood walls and ceilings. An oversized couch and armchairs, paired with an Oriental rug, give this room a casual feel. And while the timber-framed ceiling raises the roof in this section to nearly 23 feet, the soft tones of the wood and hearth combine to make this room a cozy and inviting place to relax.
While the great room's massive hearth serves as a dominant feature, there is also an intricate bit of timber-frame engineering in a round-shaped alcove off to one side of the great room. In the roof, Jim designed a timber-framed octagon to support this section of the home, which faces the lake and contains a small game table. The octagon features a decorative boss pin, which holds the elaborate timber frame structure together. "There are two sets of roof rafters here," Jim explains. "All of the upper and lower rafters are brought together into the face of the boss pin. It is suspended from the roof by triangulation."
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