Home at last

With custom house a reality, family, creative team reflect on building a dream

By Jay Dedrick, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 24, 2005 at midnight

Text size

Sunshine spills in from the south-facing glass doors along the second-floor deck and courtyard below. Unconventionally slim windows in the great room frame views to the east. Tina, carrying Talia, walks by the concrete-topped kitchen island.

More Home & Garden

More stories »

She wanted bamboo floors for the interior. Didn't get 'em. He wanted steel siding for the exterior. Didn't get it. Both want garage doors. They'll have to wait till the bankbook allows.

What matters most, though - the big picture - is exactly what they expected. And like everything about this dwelling, the big picture began with a small picture.

"Tina and I did a personal growth seminar five years ago," says Christopher Herr, the homeowner, co-architect and Tina Galgon-Herr's husband. "We were asked to draw a picture of what we envision in our future.

"I drew a picture of Tina and me sitting on a rooftop deck."

Christopher eventually expanded on that drawing at the drafting table. Plans encompassed not only that rooftop deck, but a pair of courtyards and an additional patio. Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Great room, kitchen, studio, garage.

The blueprints morphed into reality in the foothills north of Boulder over nine months and two weeks, from groundbreaking to moving in. The couple's first moment of unwinding on the rooftop deck came in June.

Unlike the fantasy picture, reality brought with it a soundtrack from the road down the hill from the house.

"How ubiquitous the traffic noise is surprised us," Christopher says. "We'll be sitting out on the roof deck at 10 o'clock and five cars will go by."

They're anxious to install a courtyard fountain next summer, to provide some sound camouflage. So that disappointment, like a few other minor ones, can be addressed. Others they'll have to accept, with just a touch of regret. Mostly, though, they're at peace - and wearing broad smiles - when talking about life in their custom-built dream house.

More space means more guests

During the family's first three months here, they took advantage of the expansive digs - more than three times as large as their old condo - by hosting visits from several of Christopher's relatives.

"We didn't have that many people at our condo in a whole year," says Tina, a moment after tucking daughter Talia, 9 months old, into her crib.

"Being in the house, it's been amazing to have guests over in this space. When I'm cooking, we can converse. I'm cutting vegetables in the kitchen and still a part of the conversation in the great room. It's conducive to how we live our life, which is being with friends and family and food."

As night falls on a warm evening in late summer, four small spotlights mounted in the ground illuminate the courtyard wall on the south side of the home. They cast a glow on a large terra cotta pot and a narrow strip of sod - the only traditional landscaping on the steep hillside site.

Indoors, the scent of soy sauce drifts from the cooktop into thegreat room's conversation area. Christopher and Tina scoop up bowls of a favorite dinner these days, lentils and rice. The Nepalese-style dish gets some global fusion thanks to the couple's doctoring: the soy sauce, some chopped vegetables - and a crucial slice of American cheese dropped in between the layers of lentils and rice.

"It's cheap," Tina says.

A lot of belt-tightening

Christopher, who turned 36 last week, and Tina, who'll be 37 next week, say they took the biggest financial risk of their lives by building the Box House. That's the name given it by Christopher and Brad Tomecek, architects and partners in their firm, Studio H:T. Early estimates pegged the construction cost at $350,000, but the mortgage they ultimately signed was nearly $200,000 more.

At a meeting of friends who formed an investment club - to encourage smart money management among one another - Christopher and Tina were chided for breaking a rule of thumb: Never take out a mortgage that's more than double your annual income. Theirs is closer to quadruple.

"When we went from $350,000 up to $539,400, a big thing was going to an interest-only mortgage, which achieved lower payments for the first five years," Christopher says. He hopes to be able to borrow against equity in the home in a few years and use it to bankroll a small development project - ostensibly, a moneymaker.

"We haven't totally freaked out about the money situation," Tina says between bites of dinner. "We're still pulling out the calculator.

"We're eating lentils and rice for dinner - we're not going out to dinner like we used to. We haven't traveled a lot this past year. We definitely have let some things go. We've curtailed our expenses. We're a little bit tight right now, but we're able to pay our bills."

Christopher says they're not able to put any money into savings for the time being, but they hope to resume soon. Their two cars - a 1978 Mercedes station wagon and a 1998 Toyota RAV4 - are paid for. They're still paying off Christopher's student loans, but Tina's are done.

"There are two fallbacks," Christopher says. "We could figure out a way for Tina to go back to full-time work if we had to. If she did that, there's the child-care expense to consider.

"I could also bail on Studio H:T and find a job at some other firm, and probably make more money than I'm making now. But it would have to get really bad. That's a very last-resort move."

They have no regrets about the financial commitment. Christopher says they went into the project armed with information - and faith.

"I don't feel we've made reckless decisions," he says.

Experience builds confidence

Christopher figures he's far enough along in his architecture career to know he has some good ideas. He's just not experienced enough to have complete confidence all the time.

The house he built is building his confidence.

"The space really feels very comfortable to us," he says. "It's just very easy to live in, which is a real relief. Because the way this house is, spatially, is not normal at all."

He smiles as he turns to face the wall of cabinets shared by the great room and kitchen, one of his favorite design elements in the home. The line of cabinets forms a serpentine shape: a column from floor to ceiling, joined with a row parallel to the ceiling and stretching toward the kitchen, then a column running down to the floor again. From there, a row of cabinets and appliances runs parallel to the floor, then meets up with the final "column" - the refrigerator and overhead cabinets.

"I really struggled with how the cabinets should lay out," Christopher says. "And I was drawing this little S-shaped shelf where the three cabinets would be over the sink."

Brad looked at Christopher's sketch and simply amplified the S idea, using a bold stroke to expand the shape from the shelf to the entire wall.

Christopher also loves the sequence of entering the house - coming up the outdoor stairs from the garage, walking through the oversized door and stepping up onto the first floor. "The space opens up."

That openness makes for what Christopher calls an acoustically connected house. "Even if we close the pocket doors on the master bedroom, we can hear Talia in her room downstairs. It's not a soundproof home, but that doesn't bother me."

They're already fond of the house's sounds. The metallic "ping" produced by walking up and down the steel accordion staircase. The creak of wood while stepping across the bridge between the master bedroom and its adjoining bath and closet on the other side.

"I love our bedroom, the upstairs, that space," Tina says. "At night, when we're going to bed, you get the light from the city, looking out east to Denver.

"We're not going to need a lot of artwork in this place, because of the views."

Few regrets

One space inside the house earns a less favorable review.

The utility room measures about 19 feet by 6 feet. Tucked in behind the kitchen, it houses the stacked, front-loading washer and dryer and other utilities. Mostly, though, it's taken up by the 300-gallon cistern for the home's fire sprinkler system.

"The fire sprinkler cistern was initially supposed to be in a crawl space on the west side of the house. It was going to be a flat, wide cistern," Christopher says. Instead, it's tall and stout.

So if they had it to do over, they'd want a bigger utility room. Otherwise, Christopher and Tina come up empty on regrets. Christopher grimaces as he points out a barely noticeable spot where the great room's east wall meets the ceiling. A tiny part of a steel column pokes out, nearly obscured by paint that helps it blend into the wall. Tina says that only Christopher would notice it.

"When we started this, I heard a lot of warnings from other architects," Christopher says. "You know, 'Don't think of this as the perfect be-all, end-all.' "

Christopher's partners - Brad and general contractor James Casanova - learned lessons as well.

Weather, slope proved formidable

Twenty days.

That's how much time James and his crew lost to the weather during the home's 9 1/2 months of construction. Fall rain and winter snow exceeded expectations.

"The steepness, the angle, the mud - the site was a lot wetter than anyone would expect," says James, whose single greatest challenge proved to be concrete. Transporting the cumbersome muck to the site overwhelmed him and his subcontractors.

"I've learned to be more of a pessimist in the planning stage, the scheduling: Don't underestimate the site."

Hindsight also convinced James that the controversial pillar plan - which would have lifted the house out of the ground and placed it on concrete piers - would have been worthwhile.

"That would have saved us a lot of money in the end - more than we expected," James says. "But then, it wouldn't have been the same house. It wouldn't have had the same feel."

He spent the late summer finishing a remodeling project, and has more plans in the works with Christopher and Brad. And he's already applying lessons from the Box House to projects for other clients.

"I'm really glad we did this - it's the most exciting project we've done in my company," James says. "And Christopher and Tina and I are still friends, so something good happened with that!"

'House is like a laboratory'

For Christopher's co-architect, business partner and good friend, the home posed challenges at work, rather than at the construction site.

"The biggest struggle was trying to divide time between the office and this house," Brad says. "It's like a baby. But we had other clients that we had to be responsible to."

Being part of all of the home's design aspects was "really cool," Brad says.

"One of the big lessons we learned was that, given six years to design something, we would take six years. Given four months, we'll take four months. We'd prefer to have all the time in the world. But as an artist or a craftsman, you have to know when it's good, when it's OK to say, 'It's done.' "

And now that it's done, he craves another challenge in a similar vein. Yet he knows that could be a long time coming - if it comes at all.

"I would hope to always design something this adventurous. Most of our clients aren't this trusting and experimental," Brad says. "I think only architects can have a house this raw and unfinished. This house is like a laboratory that Christopher and I want to learn from. And we'll see how it holds up after time."

His visits to the home - including the housewarming party - provide him with the concrete experience he could only imagine during the design phase.

"Because I've been living there in my mind," he says, "the satisfaction comes in seeing people use it."

He and Christopher look forward to finding similar satisfaction in new projects that Studio H:T is designing for clients, including an Asian bistro in Longmont and a triplex in Denver's Highlands neighborhood. Construction also begins soon on several houses the partners have designed, including a 12,000-square-foot Broomfield residence.

Spiritual yearnings

Now that he has his house, Christopher's thoughts turn to shoring up his temple.

"With the events that have just happened - the baby, the house, being busy with getting a new business off the ground - I feel very spiritually out of touch," Christopher says, sipping a glass of red wine. "My life from a physical and spiritual standpoint feel neglected. The business and my emotional relationship with Tina and baby, those feel good. But I don't feel balanced right now."

Christopher was raised Lutheran; Tina, Catholic. They're not regular churchgoers right now. "Still, there's something bigger than me out there," Christopher says.

"I feel we've been focused on ourselves," Tina says. "We tithe, but there's always more you can do. I feel I've been a little self-absorbed in our house. We need to make dates with Habitat for Humanity."

It's a wrap

As the sun sets on the Herrs' housewarming party in late September, the video crew shooting footage for HGTV's Dream House series wraps up its work. For their participation, the Herrs received $20,000 from the network - and a vivid document of the birth of their home. Of course, it's being shared with the rest of the country: The 13th and final episode on the Boulder-area home airs Monday night.

Quieting the gathered family and friends, Christopher's mom, Kay Gillespie, stands at the foot of the staircase. Christopher and Tina flank her, each holding a glass of wine. Kay tells the dozens of guests how the home's history leads back to when her parents bought the land in the early '60s.

"That was a different time, a different world, a different generation," she says. "I know they are very happy for Christopher and Tina."

She toasts them.

"Their dream never died," Kay says. "And now it has come to realization, to manifestation, over these months and years. And, in particular, tonight.

"This house really is a dream house."

The son kisses his mother on the cheek, then turns to the crowd. More than a year ago, Christopher was moved to tears as he recalled the same family connection at the groundbreaking ceremony. Tonight, the circle is unbroken.

"This wouldn't have been possible without the help of friends and family," he says. He chokes, then puts his hand to his mouth as tears roll down his cheeks.

"Friends and family made this happen. Just . . .

"Thanks."

More family events in this home aren't too far off: Thanksgiving. Talia's first birthday party. Christmas.

A few hours after the housewarming, the family is alone again in its house. Outside, the night air is cool; inside, snug bedcovers bring warmth. Baby, mother and father have shut their eyes for the night.

They sleep.

And dream.

dedrickj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5484

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News