Initially, we thought of building a Swiss chalet-style house.   We even went so far as to work with an architect for more than 2 years on a design we had sketched ourselves.   After a lot money and numerous iterations of plans, we had nearly complete construction drawings.  That's when the real estimates showed the cost would be more than double what I wanted spend on a home.  

We had been reading log and timberframe magazines for several years to get ideas.    The "square" hand hewn log appearance is not unusual in history, but has been somewhat forgotton.   There are old 1800's examples square hand-hewn log cabins and homes in Grants Pass and Yreka.  One traditional log home company consistently stood apart from the others in its advertisements: it builds only hand-hewn square-log homes.  

So, we called Stonemill Log Homes in Tennessee one day and started the basic process.   What made them different from the rest was that they cut square hand-hewn logs rather than the nearly ubiquitous round lodge-style log homes that everyone else did.     Stonemill's price for planed flat vs hand-hewn timbers was the same. 

The architectural and engineering fees for a custom design was included in the house and the overall price was quite reasonable.  Also, Stonemill provided house shell erection and dry-in services, which the other companies did not offer.   (This service is 100% necessary if your builder has never built a log home, and they were very efficient.)

We took the basic design of a traditional Appalachian farmhouse with wraparound porch and dormers and heavily modified the inside floorplan.  The house would be set in the hillside and below the house would be a daylight basement with 2 car garage and workshop.    (Last update 11/25/2010)

Last update 11/22/12.