State of Mind
Log Homes Illustrated - September 2004
Everyone's idea of perfection is different. When Jack and
Judy McCarthy announced that they planned to retire to a remote
lake in northern Minnesota, many of their best friends and closest
relatives questioned why they would ever want to do such a
thing. The move would put them more than four hours away, not
an easy distance even for those willing to make the trek.
But Jack and Judy's idea of the perfect place to retire included
all of the things that they enjoyed most: hearing the distant
call of a loon, soaking their feet in the chilly waters of a placid
glacier lake, picking basketfuls of wild berries, watching the
trees change from pale gold to crimson each fall and fishing to
their hearts' content. All of these things could be done with
total disregard for schedules, appointments and meetings - all of
which the couple had been slaves to in the past.
The McCarthys reassured everyone that, even though they were
moving, they would stay in touch. "Yes, it might take a
couple more hours to see you," Judy wrote her friends, "but that's
not a problem with the good roads and highways between us.
Come and visit us, and you'll understand our new state of
mind."
The couple's new outlook actually began shortly after Jack's
brother and two of Judy's closest friends unexpectedly passed away
within a short time of each other. All three were only in
their 50s. The losses showed the McCarthy's that there was no
time like the present to do something they always wanted to
do. "There are no guarantees in life," Judy says. "So
we decided to get the house built, live in it and enjoy it as much
as we could."
They found their property totally by chance. Judy had
grown up in northern Minnesota and, as a young girl, spent her
summers on Lake Vermilion, which is about 40 miles south of the
Canadian border. The 26-mile-long glacier lake is dotted with
nearly 365 islands. One day, about 15 years ago, while the
couple happened to be staying at a resort in the region, Judy drove
her husband over to see the lake to show him her old haunts and
scout out properties for a retirement home that they hoped to build
someday. When Jack, an avid fisherman, saw the lake and its
rocky shoreline overgrown with birch, aspen and evergreen trees, he
thought it was as perfect as Judy described.
Judy wondered whether any old friends of her parents might still
live in the area. When they turned down a dead-end road, she
recognized the name on the mailbox, "I said let's go down there and
see if it is their place," Judy says, "but nobody was home."
Judy left a note with the phone number of their hotel. Later
that evening, they received a call from the people inviting them
for coffee. Jack and Judy gladly accepted. "They were
so warm and kind," Judy says. "It was as if we had never been
apart."
When
the couple asked Jack and Judy what they were doing up so far
north, them mentioned their retirement plans and that they were
looking for available property along the lake. The next
morning, the couple invited Jack and Judy to breakfast at their
house. That's when the unexpected happened. The couple
offered to sell them half of their shoreline property, which
totaled 6 acres. Jack and Judy couldn't believe the
offer. "They weren't looking to sell. But they always
thought that they might split it off someday." Jack
says. "And with the family connection, they thought it was
meant to be."
Needless to say, the couple accepted the gracious offer.
Within the space of 24 hours, they found the lakeside property they
were looking for, and it came with not just a wonderful view, but
also terrific neighbors.
Since Jack and Judy were in no hurry to build their retirement
home, they let the property sit idle for the next 15 years.
"During the first three years, we put in a road, the electricity
and a septic system." Judy says. "When we got all that
in, we put a couple of trailers on the lot, and we'd come up for
weekends and camp with the kids. We camped for the next 12
years."
When the couple got around to thinking about what type of home
to build on the lot, a log home was the first thing to come to
mind. "We did a lot of the things that other people do," Jack
says. "Like getting the magazines and going to shows and
model homes."
After talking to different log-home producers over a six year
period, the couple decided to go with an insulated-log wall system
rather than a full-log one. "One of the reasons we went with
the insulated log system was to give us the flexibility on the
inside, for instance, to mix and match materials such as Sheetrock
with tongue and groove and logs on the walls." Judy says, "I
love the wood, but I didn't want it in every single room."
Being in the heating and plumbing business, Jack also liked the
high R-values of the insulated log walls. "Twenty-five below
with some wind is not unusual up here," Jack says. "So I
wanted the high R values in the walls. And with the way I
designed the radiant in-floor heating system, with an inch and a
half of lightweight concrete on each of the home's there floors, it
is about 60 percent more efficient than a conventional heating
system."
The
couple chose Expedition Log Homes to produce their log package,
which they ordered through Jay Enderson, an authorized independent
manufacturer's representative for Expedition in the town of Albert
Lea in southern Minnesota. The package included everything
from the foundation to the tongue-and-groove knotty pine decking
and the shingles on the roof.
From Expedition's different log profiles, Jack and Judy chose
half-logs with a 10-inch stack height and 12-inch diameter and full
round corners. The large logs give the home an authentic
full-log appearance.
To assemble the 5,562 square foot homes, the Keister Builders of
Cook, Minnesota. Jack contracted out the electrical and then
put in the heating and plumbing systems himself. He and Judy
also pitched in by doing a log of the time-consuming grunt
work.
One concern of Jack's was humidity and condensation. He
installed an air-exchange unit to vent any moisture that builds up
in the kitchen and bathrooms and to bring in fresh outside
air. "With the houses built as tight as they are," Jack says,
"you have to control the moisture to make sure that we don't have
too much humidity in the building."
After putting so much care and effort into their home, Jack and
Judy were so proud of it that they decided to become associate
representatives for Expedition and show their log home to anyone in
the northern part of the state. "We thought about this house
for so many years," Judy says, "we have to pinch ourselves every
time we go home. We truly feel blessed that we've been able
to do it and because of that we are sharing it with a lot of
people."
