Doug Pitts is flanked by crisscrossed flared-ended timbers at a $2 million log home under construction in Rogersville. The thousand-pound timbers average 18 inches in diameter and some are as old as 700 years.
Who knew constructing a multimillion-dollar home with hundred-year-old, thousand-pound timbers was just like building with iconic Lincoln Logs?
Doug Pitts knew.
The owner of Doug Pitts Construction LLC had a firsthand view of the piecing together of a massive log home east of Rogersville that last month was the focal point of a Discovery Channel TV show.
“It was just like a Lincoln Log set. They had to just reassemble it. It all went together in one week,” Pitts says of the 7,500-square-foot home that film crews captured for an episode of “Timber Kings.”
The unique job started a couple of years ago when Pitts Construction clients Barry and Dr. Kim Retchloff discovered Pioneer Log Homes in British Columbia, Canada. Pioneer’s artful craftsmanship of “log mahals” is the centerpiece of Discovery’s “Timber Kings” as crews erect the log mansions.
“It’s kind of living, breathing art,” says homeowner Barry Retchloff. “Some people have art in their homes. We get to live in art.”
A key part of the craftsmanship is the corner design with crisscrossed flared-end timbers, which average 18 inches in diameter.
The towering Western red cedars were harvested in northwest British Columbia. Pioneer lumbermen cut down the trees at the wider base to create a unique look at the house joints.
“That’s what you see on the outside corners of the house, the flared ends. I’m most impressed with the craftsmanship and size of the logs,” says Pitts, who serves as the home’s general contractor. “There is no space between the logs. The older the house gets, the tighter the house gets.”
Pioneer distributor Russ Robertson says the key is hand scribing rather than milling the logs.
“We use, essentially, the full tree,” says Robertson, who is based in Bentonville, Ark., and met the Retchloffs at the Branson Log & Timber Home Show in March 2012. “The bottom of each tree is hand carved to fit the log it sits on top of. They don’t require chinking.”
‘15 seconds of fame’ Pitts has worked on-site the last year, picking up where the Pioneer builders left off.
In April 2013, seven flatbed tractor-trailers delivered the logs to a hilltop on the Retchloff’s 280-some acres. For the next week, the Webster County property became a studio set to document the sophisticated Lincoln Log construction – with a little TV drama sprinkled in.
The episode, titled “Heir Apparent” because a son in Pioneer’s founding family is involved with the build, aired March 22. For Pitts, it was 15 minutes of fame he never asked for.
“More like 15 seconds of fame,” he says. “I never esteemed to be an actor, so seeing myself on TV was a little bit embarrassing.”
He says the show’s producers embellished a pretty seamless process.
“They made it seem like the crane had run out of time, and they still had a lot of work to do. So we had to improvise by using my forklift on the job to finish the log set,” he says.
Now, it’s Pitts’ job, along with his subcontractors, to outfit the home with the HVAC, electric, trim and cabinetry.
The project, one of four ongoing for Pitts Construction, has a roughly $2 million price tag. Between the others, he’s juggling about $7.5 million in new home construction work, including the Carthage home of Leggett & Platt Chairman and CEO David Haffner.
While the Retchloff home is Pitts’ first cabin construction, custom homes are nothing new. He entered the high-end niche in 1997, while wrapping up a stint in commercial construction with Wirt Construction.
“It never really scared me after dealing with $15 or $20 million projects in commercial construction,” Pitts says of the large-scale homebuilding, noting the 12- to 20-month residential build-outs also mirror his past work. “It just doesn’t happen overnight. You’re really married to that house for a long period of time.”
A 15,000-square-foot Rogersville home for friends David and Leisa Jungers in 2004 was his foray into full-blown high-end work. In the last seven years, he’s built almost 20 homes, ranging between $500,000 and $3 million apiece.
“There is still people out there willing to spend that much on their home. It’s definitely a dream home scenario for people who have worked hard all their life,” he says. “That’s the people I’m building for now.”
Quality over quantity Among the homes completed last year was the residence of Jon Swope, Mercy’s central region president. Pitts finished 2013 with five homes built, representing a combined market value of $3.4 million. The year before, three homes were valued at $2.9 million, according to Springfield Business Journal list research.
The four underway this year are in Carthage, Branson and two in the Rogersville area – and each is above $1 million.
Pitts employs one – project coordinator Kaye Lee – and behind him is a team of steady subcontractors, including Comfort Mechanical, Wheeler Plumbing, Done Right Construction and G.R. Tracy Masonry.
“Hopefully, next week we’ll have everything stained,” Lee says in the Rogersville log home amid other organizational directions given to tradesmen.
The home is scheduled for completion by the end of April.
Retchloff, who will work from a home office as president of Vancouver, Canada-based hardware importer Quality Craft Industries, says he and his wife, a veterinarian in Rogersville, are anxious to move in.
“Every week we see something new, something different,” he says, noting the home’s placement and wraparound porch offers views of their 70 head of commercial cattle and African Watusi cattle, aka “pasture ornaments.” “The plan is this is our last home.
We designed it with our lifestyle in mind.”
Pioneer claims the homes will stand more than 300 years.
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
