Standing their ground

Boulder couple digs in as neighbors raise objections to house

By Jay Dedrick, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 22, 2005 at midnight

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Photo by Ellen Jaskol © The Rocky

High above freshly poured concrete footers, a construction worker crosses over a temporary bridge at Tina and Christopher Herr's building site. Designers of the modern home have dubbed it "The Box House."

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The silent sentinel watches without blinking. So long as the sun is shining, for months on end, it monitors the land where Christopher Herr and Tina Galgon-Herr are building their custom home.

The time-lapse camera sits atop a 30-foot post at the building site in the foothills north of Boulder. Producers of HGTV's Dream House installed it; once construction has finished, they'll be able to play back a visual record of the house's evolution within seconds.

Human eyes are trained on the area, too, and they're camera-shy. Some of the Herrs' future neighbors want the equipment removed, even though it's stationary and only photographs activity on the Herr property.

The land has belonged to Christopher's family for more than 40 years, and those who have built homes on nearby property might have assumed the hillside would remain undeveloped. Now that a new home is coming to the neighborhood, not all the locals have been welcoming.

Airing their differences

An early indication of resistance came at an October 2003 hearing before Boulder County planners. The owners of a neighboring home didn't like Christopher's plan, partly because cars pulling up the Herr driveway would shine their headlights into the neighbors' master bedroom.

They also didn't want to see a Ponderosa pine on the Herr property cut down, which early engineering reports indicated would be required. At least 50 years old, it's one of the few trees offering some screening between the neighbors' house and the road below.

"We are also concerned about the way the applicant's home fits into the neighborhood," the couple wrote in a 2003 letter to the Boulder County land use department. "It is a mountain neighborhood and the applicant's proposed drawings look very much like an office building." Given plans for metallic siding and concrete retaining walls, the couple feared that "a warehouse appearance (will) replace the beautiful view that we currently enjoy."

After the hearing, Christopher received a letter from the county, whose staff had previously indicated the site plan looked fine. It was a second opinion that negated the county's initial OK.

"I was livid when I got this," says Christopher, whose friends and family say they rarely see him rattled.

"I could sense Christopher's blood pressure rising," says Brad Tomecek, the architect who co-designed the project with Christopher.

The county provided a drawing indicating that a better location for the home would be farther down the hill — close to the street. The county reasoned that the slope of the land was more level near the road, and therefore more suitable for building.

Christopher didn't buy it. Nestling the home into the hillside, somewhat removed from the bustle of the road, and placing it high enough to take full advantage of views were critical components of his and Tina's dream house.

"It was interesting to me, and frustrating, because Brad and I and the engineers had spent literally years talking about the different variables," Christopher says. One of the biggest challenges came in the form of a low-hanging, overhead phone line stretched across the property that limited where the house could be sited. Burying the line underground would be impractical — disruptive to the land and expensive.

"We were extremely familiar with the constraints on the site. The phone line was completely ignored in the county's letter.

"So we fought the county."

Christopher and Brad hired a consultant who demonstrated that the degree of slope was identical to the preferred site higher up the hill. County staff agreed with the reasoning, and recommended the plan for approval by county commissioners.

At the January 2004 hearing, the neighbors again stated their objections — including the idea that the driveway and required revegetation efforts on the land would be eyesores. Another area homeowner spoke in favor of the Herr home, thanking Christopher for being conscientious and building a dwelling that will add visual appeal to the neighborhood.

"The (objecting) neighbors are due consideration," Commissioner Tom Mayer said at the meeting, "but we don't site houses just for their convenience."

Commissioners approved the plan. To assuage the neighbors' concern over car headlights and the tree — which Tina was eager to save, too — Christopher and Brad worked with engineers to reconfigure plans for the driveway.

"It was more disrupting to the land," Christopher laments, noting the longer, 240-foot stretch of the driveway.

"But we also get a stellar view coming up the drive now," Brad says.

'They're being a little difficult'

Problem solved. Neighbors still not satisfied.

Months later, Christopher grows frustrated again when he learns that Xcel Energy has no easement, or legal access, to the power pole closest to the building site, which he hoped could be shared. The power pole lies on the property of the same neighbors who objected to the initial home plan.

Christopher's alternative: pay to place a new power pole on his own property, close to the existing power pole. After some prickly negotiations, the neighbors eventually relent and grant Xcel access to the existing power pole to add the Herr home to the line.

The quest for electricity generated far more sparks than Christopher ever expected.

"We'll certainly do our best to be civil (to the neighbors)," Christopher says. "But I don't know that there's much hope of having a friendly neighbor relationship with them. I think they see the world very differently than Tina and I do. But we'll get this done and peacefully coexist."

Digging up a mystery

Neighborhood conflict isn't the only thing disrupting Christopher's peace of mind. The mystery of the building site's land — and its impact on construction of the home — weigh heavy.

In late summer 2004, with excavation on the building site under way, builder James Casanova is hoping that bedrock won't be reached too soon. If it's only 1 to 3 feet beneath the surface, they'll have to blast away the rock to make room for the home's foundation. That would mean more money — $1,500 per dynamite blast.

Early on in the digging, the excavator does hit some bedrock, but its sharp steel teeth are able to bite through it, giving Christopher and James cause for relief. But as crews continue to dig at the northeast corner of the structure, where the garage will sit, tension again builds over a possibility left unpondered until now:

What if the bedrock is too deep?

When the excavator fails to hit bedrock at the desired 5 or 6 feet of depth, James grows concerned. The deeper the dig, the more time required, which means higher labor costs and construction delays. Then there's the chore of removing a greater amount of soil from the site — again, more time and money. And filling a deeper hole with more concrete means yet another major hit to the budget.

James, Christopher and the concrete crew brainstorm. The plan of action: Rather than pour a solid foundation of rock and concrete, they can install concrete caissons, essentially underground pillars that will reach from bedrock to the four corners of the garage floor.

A drilling test confirms that they've made the right decision: It digs 19 feet underground before touching bottom.

Though the concrete caisson plan will work, it also sends the house $10,000 over budget. And that's the least expensive course of action possible.

Well or trucked-in water?

Christopher also is looking to save some money with his choice of water supply for the home. He could dig a well, but says that many neighbors in the immediate area have dug wells that went dry.

He'd rather join the foothills residents who have water trucked to their homes and stored in cisterns. Each truckload of 2,500 gallons costs $50 and lasts anywhere from one week to six weeks.

"A well is a financial black hole," says Christopher, guessing he and Tina could spend somewhere between $4,000 and $17,000 on a well. "I can buy a lot of hauled water for that amount."

He'll have to convince Boulder County that hauled water is an acceptable solution. Officials are reluctant to grant him permission, preferring a well.

"I'm confused as to where the county's hang-up comes from," Christopher says. "But we're sorting through that."

At least one water-related issue has ended in a happy compromise between Christopher and the county. Because of the driveway's steepness, length and narrow turnaround space, a firetruck would have a difficult — if not impossible — time making it to and from the doorstep. As a tradeoff, to avoid redoing driveway plans yet again, Christopher and James agreed to install an in-house sprinkler system with a 300-gallon tank.

That's one less battle Christopher has to worry about.

"The beginning of the project has been stressful," Christopher says. "My hope is that we're past the big unknowns. We're moving into a phase where things are a little bit more predictable."

'That was pretty intense'

He and Tina also are striving to learn what to expect from the other major undertaking in their lives: welcoming their baby daughter into the world. They've been attending Birthing From Within, which Tina calls a "birth and awareness class."

"It's cool. It's experiential. We don't just listen to someone talking. We get to talk about our fears and expectations. I learned breathing techniques."

She also plunged into some thermal therapy, sinking her forearms into a galvanized steel bucket of ice cubes for two minutes.

"It's painful to hold ice to your wrists," says Tina, explaining that the visualization exercise is meant to prepare the mom for the pain of labor. "That was pretty intense."

But can it truly prepare her and Christopher for the real arrival?

They're about to find out.

dedrickj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5484

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