At Home With Cedar

Rebuilding the family cabin

Claire Ewart has an artist’s eye for detail and an author’s gift of expression, so when it came to designing her home in the Saugatuck, Michigan-area, she wanted to be hands-on, with everyone on the same page.

As part of Town & Country Cedar Homes’ building process, she was invited to go trouncing through northern Michigan’s cedar swamps where coveted northern white cedar is harvested. There, the owner was able to personally select a collection of twig branches for use as trim in her new home.

“One of the main reasons we chose Town & Country is that I had seen how they use whole tree trunks for exterior and interior details in their designs,” said Ewart. “They almost look like they are growing out of the floor. I wanted those tree trunks as supports for my porch, so from a distance it would look like a forest supporting the roof of the porch. i also wanted some branch work growing out of the tree trunks.”

After sharing her ideas with her personal Town & Country design team, they invited her north to choose the right cedar trees and branches to fulfi ll her vision.

“It was ‘slip’ season last spring, the time of year when they can easily peel the bark off without a lot of effort,” said Ewart. “We stayed at their Petoskey Model Home, and in the morning we got up and went out to the swamp, along with the design team and these two guys with huge chainsaws. It was a typical Michigan early-spring day, but it was really an amazing experience, and by the end of the couple hours, they had loaded a pick-up with all the branches we selected. It was a real treat.”

Setting a House Apart: The Details

The hands-on swamp experience was another chapter in the story of Ewart and husband Tom Herr’s home, named Black Bear after a character in one of Ewart’s books, “One Cold Night.”

When the Indiana couple first purchased their Michigan property in 1999, a 100-year-old log cabin stood on the site. The old log home was in disrepair, and the couple turned to Town & Country to translate their vision into a new getaway with that old, comfortable feeling. “They were clearly able to do the kind of creative character that we were looking for in a dwelling,” Ewart said.

That meant details, details, details. The original cottage was white and aqua, and that color scheme has been continued throughout the interior and exterior of the new structure, completed in 2008 with more than 4,000 square feet.

Flare-bottomed posts, white-painted cedar siding on the exterior with aqua painted cedar trim, rounded doorways trimmed in cedar and twig accents throughout are combined with reclaimed cedar from the original cabin to create a new home that looks like it’s been there 100 years.

The new cottage is not full log, though Ewart said they love that feel and treatment. “We decided to go with something that was a little lighter and airy,” Ewart said.

The raw materials from Town & Country continued to impress Ewart, Herr and their Town & Country referred builder, Doug Tankersley of Kalamazoo, as they progressed through the process. Ewart was equally impressed with the firm’s openness to her input. Toward the end, she took another opportunity to select the log for her mantel and the boulders for the fireplace, laying out exactly where each rock would be placed.

“I’m very visual, and because of that, maybe, they were willing to give me some leeway. But I suspect they are very good with everyone they work with,” Ewart added. “I really appreciated their vision and their flexibility.”

Diverse Products, Cohesive Homes

The roots of Town & Country have long intertwined with such examples of customer service. In recent years, the company’s Boyne Falls sawmill has branched out to create custom cedar products to further enhance the timbers, logs, trusses and beams that form the structures of its custom homes.

“Sometimes, people are looking for a particular style of burl or a particular look for a truss, and with that in mind, we’ll actually go into the cedar swamps looking for a log that’s going to fit that application,” said Rocky Ackerman, Town & Country Cedar Homes Sales Consultant. “The customer is happy and the end result is a very unique product.”

That approach carries through from blueprint to build, particularly when it comes to the custom trusses, Ackerman said. “ I might make design suggestions for them to meet their budget that can give a little more flair to their project,” he added.

With one client, for instance, he suggested adding flare-bottomed posts inside and out to add interest to their log home living experience. “A lot of times, we’ll embellish the actual logs with something special as well,” Ackerman said. “I work with builders, architects, homeowners and from time to time with craftsmen to create something unique. We don’t like to say we can’t do something.”

This creativity has led to development of additional product lines crafted from the cedar materials milled at the company’s manufacturing plant: Beadboard and wainscoting, kitchen and bath applications, accents like door and window trims, twig railings, log and timber sidings and panelings, spindles, gables, vents, flower boxes, pergolas, gazebos and more exterior and interior details.

“We started out as a full-service log home and timber business, but we would get thousands of requests for just parts and pieces,” said Bob Kinney, company cofounder and recently retired Vice President of Mill Operations. “We weren’t doing anything for those clients until our new mill expansion six years ago.”

Town & Country Cedar Homes now handles thousands of small and large custom orders annually, Kinney said. “Our facility enables us to manufacture all of our exterior and interior products on one assembly line, or in our on-site custom products production area,” Kinney added. “It’s very efficient and gives our clients a top-quality product every time.”

At home with the author

Claire Ewart and her husband, Tom Herr, and their daughter live on a century-old property in the Saugatuck area of Michigan.

Ewart is an accomplished author and illustrator, with a number of books to her name including “One Cold Night,” “Fossil,” and “The Giant.” She also illustrated a book with legendary Tomie dePaola, “The Legend of the Persian Carpet,” who said about Ewart, “No author could ask for a more talented interpreter.”

Ewart’s work has been featured on PBS’s “Reading Rainbow” and “Storytime.” Her illustrations have been featured in museums and galleries, including in the Society of Illustrators Show, “Original Art.”

She has also received the Celebrate Literacy Award from the International Reading Association. For more information on her books and talents, go online to www.claireewart.com.

White Cedar Products

- Log sidings – various profiles
- Timber siding
- Cedar Shakes
- Bead Board Paneling
- T&G End-Matched Paneling, Smooth finish
- T&G End-Matched Paneling, Rough Sawn finish
- Trims – Various profiles
- Railing Systems – Various profiles
- Log Rafters, Corners & Posts
- Timber Rafters, Corners & Posts
- Interior Doors
- Log or Timber Mantles
- Log or Timber Staircases
- Log or Timber Structural Trusses
- Log or Timber Support Brackets
- Custom Gable Vents or Flower Boxes