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Newlyweds build their home with panels
and timbers in Illinois.
Timber Homes
Illustrated • August 2001
Story by Colleen Morrissey • Photos by Roger Wade
Reprinted with permission.© 2001 by Goodman Media Group Inc
Unlike most couples, Beverly and Terry
Thompson couldn't wait to get back from their honeymoon. For on
the day they arrived home, ground was to be broken on the new timber-frame
home they would share as husband and wife, with Beverly as the general
contractor. She was on site daily, making sure the subcontractors
showed up on time and that the work was being done right, all the
while trying to stay one step ahead of schedule.
While Beverly had never built a home before,
she was confident that planning and persistence would result in
successfully completing the home of their dreams. "It was just
a matter of managing people," says the former professor at
Chicago's Northwestern University. It also helped that she was in
the able hands of Herb Nadelhoffer of Naperville, Illinois, a 17-year
representative for Riverbend Timber Framing. "Herb was great,"
Beverly says. "We'd ask him to check on something, and he'd
come in a second." A timber frame wasn't what came to mind
when the Thompsons began thinking about their home. "The house
was a great compromise for us," Terry explains. "I was
the one who originally wanted a house where all the walls were wood,
with no white anywhere.
One day while in a bookstore, he thumbed
through a timber-frame magazine and found Herb's ad. Once he met
with Herb and discovered that timber framing offered the best of
both worlds, Terry changed his mind. "It's just enough wood
for me and enough white walls for Beverly," he says. Soon after
their meeting, Herb drew up preliminary plans based on Riverbend's
Anchor Bay design. "It's a three-bent, two-bay timber-frame
home with traditional wooden pegs, mortises and tenons," Herb
says. The plans were then sent over to Riverbend's design staff
in Blissfield, Michigan, where an official set of blueprints was
created.
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The
Thompsons' home is surrounded by nearly 4,000 square feet of decking.
Designed by DeWitt Construction in Wisconsin, the deck echoes the
shape of the prow and points toward an old oak tree on the property.
Visitors enter the home through a side entrance shaded by a dormer.
Since the home doesn't have any sidewalks, the couple extended the
decking around nearly three-quarters of the exterior, from front
to back. The three-car garage shelters from view a swimming pool
behind it.
Before breaking ground, the couple spent a
year interviewing and gathering bids from subcontractors. Fortunately,
they were good friends with Steve Edgecomb, a master carpenter.
Steve agreed to shepherd the building of the couple's home after
Herb and his Riverbend crew raised the frame and installed the insulated
panels.
Work on the home began in August 1993. It was
ready for move-in by the next July. The building process went smoothly,
even though some of the guys weren't used to taking orders from
a woman -- "a small woman," Beverly chuckles. "Sometimes
they would call me at my office," Terry says. "I would
say, 'Do whatever Beverly tells you.' Because we had already agreed
beforehand on what had to be done." Despite all the pressures
and endless questions, Beverly says that she'd do it all over again.
"The only thing I'd say to somebody who wanted to do this is
have a lot of time on your hands."
Located at the end of a cul-de-sac, on a bluff
overlooking the Illinois River, the home rests peacefully on two
and a half acres. Besides its spectacular views, the most prominent
feature of the home is its distinctive prow front. Essentially a
wall of glass rising 28 feet into the air, the prow points majestically
toward a very old oak tree on the property. "Before construction
began on the prow, my son and I took yellow tape and extended it
from the tree to where the prow would be to make sure that it pointed
at the tree when it was completed," Beverly says.
 
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