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great room
and adjacent music room facing the lake, with the other bedrooms
and bathrooms of the 2,200-square-foot house oriented inland. "We
didn't want the house to dominate the site, and in fact, it's very
difficult to see our house from the lake."
With
the conceptual drawings agreed upon, the next step was to find a
contractor and a timber frame fabricator. The Hills interviewed
with several timber-framers but were particularly impressed with
the work North Woods Joinery, a seven-year-old Cambridge, VT firm
that puts together about 30 frames per year. They didn't need to
look far to find their general contractor: Bruce Noble is a native
islander who has been doing work for the Hill family for years.
Bruce is known for his renovation skills, and the Hills were convinced
that he was the right person to oversee the construction of their
home.
The
two-story tall window walls of the Great Room are one of the striking
features of the house. Because there is no room for diagonal bracing,
special engineering attention had to be paid to prevent racking.
Plywood-sheathed interior shear walls help hold everything rigidly
together. As Bruce notes, here is where the extreme precision that
North Woods Joinery used in crafting the frame really makes a difference,
particularly when it came time to set all of the windows.
Another
striking architectural feature is the flat roof. To build it so
that it provided enough insulation for the harsh climate and didn't
leak, the roofer (Rodd Roofing of St. Johnsbury, VT) installed polyisocyanurate
panels on top of the 2x6 western red cedar tongue-and-groove roof
decking. Pre-manufactured and numbered at the plant, the panels
taper slightly toward two roof drains. On top of the foam, a rubber
EPDM roof is applied. The 4-inch roof drains that run down through
the interior of the building, down into the basement, and out to
daylight are designed to handle up to 4 inches of rain per hour.
In
keeping with the sleek, contemporary look of the house, the exterior
finishes all end in the same plane. Horizontal shiplapped 1x4 western
red cedar siding wraps right around the corners, while the windows
are trimmed with wider cedar plywood.
A
few years ago, the entire region was struck by a massive ice storm
that brought down trees and powerlines, including one main trunk
of a large black walnut tree on the property. Instead of sawing
the downed tree up for firewood, Bill Hill salvaged the wood and
had it rough-milled and kiln-dried, saving it for another rainy
day long before the house plans were even begun. Bruce Noble transformed
some of this beautiful black walnut into cabinetry in the music
room that holds the sound system. The custom cabinet in the music
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