A family with five children and a love for horses owned 40 acres with an existing large barn and a pond. They wanted a rustic house and to center their family life around the horses and the land. The floor plan came about in an interesting way. At our second meeting Pat became seriously angry at her husband because he was going off on tangents and ignoring her imput. She picked up a pencil and very quickly and in anger scratched out her idea of the house plan she envisioned, then she sat back and cried. In attempting to consol her I talked and sketched over her drawing until some good things began to happen, enthusiasm followed, and we finished that meeting with the seed of an idea that I would never have conceived alone.
            The idea of randomly organized beams and thick long span decking came in handy here. The materials, both inside and out, were reclaimed utility poles, random cedar board walls, very rustic old brick and cedar shake roof. The house was positioned with a screened porch directly on the edge of the lake. The childrens bedrooms were half a level above the main floor and the master bedroom a full level up allowing for a window between for night time monitoring.