Global Barn
by Kimberly Pryor
Home building at its best is a collaboration of many different visions and talents. This is certainly true of the Kirkwood vacation home created by a worldly, imaginative couple, a gifted designer and a skilled (and flexible) builder.
When Jeff and Karen, who asked that we not use their last name, decided to build their mountain home near the Kirkwood Meadow, they knew instinctively what they wanted: a Western barn. A barn belongs near a horse meadow.
"When you look at many of the homes up there and in other ski resort areas," says Jeff, "they don't have any identity. They may be attractive, but they're nondescript. We were looking for something that would fit within that rural area. And the idea of a barn lent itself to the wood interior we wanted." Jeff is a California businessman who says that he comes from "an old family of architects."
The couple hired South Lake Tahoe designer Ben Fagan to spearhead the project. He jumped into the task of researching the design, starting just over the hill in Gardnerville, Nevada.
"We took a lot of pictures of Western barns," says Fagan. "We tried to duplicate the exteriors, roof pitches and details." During planning stages, Fagan worked with Sierra Timber Framing of Grass Valley, engineer Pat Clark of Building Concepts and Chris Jensen of Jensen & Jensen Construction Company, Inc. to achieve Jeff and Karen's vision. In 2002, the result of their combined efforts was completed: a 3,000 square foot, 4-bedroom structure that blends rustic character with all the comforts of a modern vacation home.
When approaching the entrance to this Kirkwood barn, one would hardly be surprised to hear the whinnying of a horse or the racket of a rooster. The huge barn doors conceal a two-car garage, topped by a smaller set of swinging "hayloft" doors. To complete the façade, Jeff and Fagan decided to include a rain hood—the jut in the roof that protects ranchers handling hay during a downpour. Weathered red cedar siding adds to the illusion.
A third barn door provides access to what might be a horse stall, but is actually a covered exterior entryway. Aged hemlock covers the ceiling and 16-inch-wide floorboards rest below.
"I can imagine some wagon rolling over them," says Jeff. "It helps set the stage for the house."
The open interior of the home is supported by recycled Douglas fir posts and beams that crisscross above the living and dining rooms. Each piece of wood looks as if it was pulled from an old barn, with saw marks, knots, small cracks and other imperfections. The ceiling plummets to less-than-barn-like height over the living room, keeping it from becoming too cavernous.
The master bedroom is understated—like many of the home's interior spaces—but features a wooden headboard carved with the image seen out the room's windows: the Sentinels peaks and Kirkwood's ski slopes. Eight-foot-tall French doors of knotty alder lead out to the bedroom's large, covered porch, inspired by one Karen remembers from her grandmother's house. Its railing resembles a horse fence, with black powder-coated wire crisscrossing between diagonal planks of wood.
Elements of the interior also cleverly support the home's rustic barn theme. Kitchen cabinets, for example, feature safety glass with a wire pattern that resembles chicken wire. The kitchen lights, which dangle above dark gray soapstone counters, are suspended from iron brackets Jeff found online. Jeff and Karen found the Internet to be the most economical and ultimately satisfying way to shop for most of the home's decor and exterior accessories.
"I tell friends it's the house the Internet built," jokes Jeff. The oversized, rusty strap hinges on the garage doors and on the swinging barn doors were custom-made by a retired Nebraska banker with a forge in his backyard. Other online finds are the bench and coat rack in the mudroom, crafted by a mother-and-son team in Bozeman, Montana.
"It turned out to be a great experience," said Jeff, of online shopping. "I met people from all over the country."
One of his most challenging searches was for a chandelier to hang over the dining room table. "If you put in the keywords 'rustic' and 'chandelier' or 'iron,' a lot of what comes back is Spanish or antlers or little pine trees on wagon wheels," Jeff says. He finally found what he was looking for in the work of a craftsman from Pennsylvania. Jeff told him, "It's going to be in a barn that's not really a barn. So it should be heavy and kind of rusty."
"Okay, the man said, "after I make it, I'll leave it out in the rain for two weeks." The result is an elegant metal circle with faux candles that look like real wax.
The timber framer suggested using a pulley to hang this stunning piece from an I-beam running above the dining room table. So Fagan, with the help of a Tahoe Keys pier builder, found a hook and trolley wheel lying on a barn floor. The chandelier now dangles from this metal contraption attached to the steel I-beam.
"In the plans, we had that beam wrapped in wood," says Fagan, "so it would look like the other beams." But on a visit to the construction site, Jeff took one look at the beam's rustic metal appearance and asked for it to remain au naturel.
In addition to decorating the home with Internet treasures, Jeff and Karen have brought back a number of items from their world travels. Two black masks with voluminous straw hair from Papua New Guinea frame the front door. A clay house from Mexico, filled with miniature people, sits on the kitchen counter and a wall hanging of doves crafted by Greek nuns adds a soft touch to the dining room.
The Uxmal terracotta tiles in the master bath, a pale rust color, are from Mexico. China Gold slate covers the kitchen and foyer, its black, gray, and rusty red swirls matching the kitchen wall tiles. Other items hail from Fiji, Turkey, Indonesia and Burma.
"It's a global barn," Jeff says.
"These folks were the most hands-on of any client we've worked with," says Jensen, the home's builder. "They knew exactly what they wanted it to look like." Jeff's passion for the project was particularly evident. During morning commute traffic jams, he would often call Fagan and discuss ideas.
"We were looking for a good melding between comfort and funkiness," Jeff says, "and through the efforts of many, we accomplished it."
"The best homes are created when there's a great team," says Fagan, "where the client really gets into it and the builder puts up with some changes and some wild ideas. This home was an effort between everybody—there was no total control. Everybody listened to everyone else's ideas."