Look out the front window of Steve
and Sharon Bilben’s Minnesota log home and you
get a panoramic view of Leech Lake’s natural
beauty by day and all the stars in the sky by night.
Who needs television when you have
a lakefront log home like the one Steve and Sharon
Bilben built? Large windows cover the bow front from
top to bottom, giving the couple great seats for
a show better than anything on the tube.
“It has
an easterly exposure to get the sunrise, so we wanted
to take advantage of that,” Steve says.
Leech Lake, a haven for muskies in
Minnesota’s Northwoods, is visible from almost
anywhere in the home. So are the heavens above.
“We had
large windows in our other house, but they did not
extend from floor to ceiling,” Steve says. “Now
we can see the sky as well as the lake, and at night
you can look out on all the stars.”
The views come courtesy of Northwoods
Log Homes and builder Arnie Novodvorsky. It was easy
for the Bilbens to choose a log supplier and builder
they could trust. Northwoods is owned by the Kerby
family; Steve Bilben has been the Kerby family dentist
for years. As for Novodvorsky, he built the Bilben’s
first home 25 years ago.
“When
he was building that house, we referred to Arnie
as the “Mad Russian,” Steve says. “Being
a real craftsman, he does a lot of the planning and
execution in his head.”
Northwoods put together the log package
and drew up specifications for the Bilben’s 4,800
square foot log home. Novodvorsky carried out the couple’s
plans to the letter, from the beginning of construction
in August 2000 to completion in June 2001.
Staying Close to Home
Over the years, the Bilbens never
strayed too far from their hometown of Walker, Minnesota.
The couple’s roots in the town run deep. Steve
was born and attended school in Walker. It’s
also where he met Sharon, his high school sweetheart.
“Where we’re living
now is about three-quarters of a mile from where
I grew up. People always tell me I didn’t get
too far in life,” Steve jokes.
He did leave town long enough to
attend the University of Minnesota Dental School. After
graduation, he went straight back to Walker to set
up his practice and raise a family with Sharon. One
of the couple’s three grown sons still lives
in Walker and owns a local restaurant.
In 1976, Steve and Sharon moved to
Leech Lake, the third largest lake in Minnesota. It
was the perfect setting for a couple who spends a lot
of time outdoors fishing, snowmobiling and gardening.
They didn’t ever want to leave.
Fortunately, they didn’t have
to. Next door to their house was a wooded lot just
waiting to be cleared. And the best part was…they
already owned it.
Renewing Acquaintances
The idea of owning a log home always
appealed to the Bilbens. Steve had long admired the
appearance and warmth of logs, but the couple’s
desire to build a log home didn’t take shape
until 1999.
“We had this lot adjacent
to ours and we’d thought about a log home for
a while,” Steve says. “We studied it
and found the cost difference wasn’t prohibitive,
so we went ahead with it.”
Steve and Sharon attended log home
shows and pored over magazines, all the while developing
a file of ideas they could use to draw up their floor
plan. When it came time to put their plans into action,
they turned to their old friends for help.
“We chose Northwoods
because we knew them and we like the way their logs
fit together,” Steve says. “They have
a good construction system.”
Northwoods uses 7-½ -inch
Norway pine logs for the walls and all loft, floor
and ceiling components. Fascia board and trim components
are white pine. The logs are milled smooth and pre-cut,
then stacked with a spring-loaded thru-bolt system
that holds them together.
Sight to Behold
Steve and Sharon hired Novodvorsky
to keep a sharp eye out for anything amiss. “We
wanted to use Arnie as our builder,” Steve says. “He’s
kind of fussy. This might be old-fashioned, but he
picked out all the lumber. Anything that wasn’t
to his satisfaction went back.”
What sets Novodvorsky apart, according
to Bryan Kerby, are his skills as a finish carpenter.
“He’s old school.
He’s not your typical log builder because they
usually don’t do finish carpentry,” says
Bryan, who works in sales and management at Northwoods. “They
usually just know about putting up log walls. You
want a finish carpenter to properly ice the cake.”
In the Bilben’s case, they
wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. And they
did. From inside the house, they wanted clear views
of the lake from the kitchen, dining room, living room
and loft. To achieve this, they sited the house so
the bow front, with 27 windows on the main level and
11 in the basement, has an eastern exposure and sits
parallel to the lake. Structural log posts frame the
bow front to carry overhead loads around the custom
made Marvin windows and down to the foundation.
Even the basement has a glass front
offering a wide view of the lake. The basement floor
sits 10-12 feet above the lake. “The elevation
of the land was ideal for a walk-out basement,” Steve
says. “So much light comes in that it almost
doesn’t seem like a basement.”
Space Exploration
The home is pretty spacious for two
people, but Sharon likes it that way. “People
will ask, “What do you need a big house like
that for?” I tell them it’s for when we
get mad at each other, we always have someplace to
go,” she jokes. “I always feel, though,
that the more people that can be here, the better.
And the home doesn’t feel crowded.”
The loft, with a guest bedroom, bathroom
and large reading area, is a good place for escape.
Flooring throughout the loft features planks from red
and white oak trees felled when the site was cleared.
The loft’s size (at 48 feet long, it’s
larger than most) prevented Northwoods from using standard
log ceiling components, so the company designed a roof
structure that uses five super-strong laminated beams
for support. “Standard roof trusses go with widths
more akin to 28-30 feet,” Kerby says.
Because the laminated beams run along
the ceiling, they don’t block sight lines from
the loft area. “The whole kitchen and dining
room opened up,” Steve says, “because you
don’t have any of those vertical posts in the
way.”
To enhance the open design concept,
Steve and Sharon planned a vaulted tongue and groove
ceiling that rises 24 feet above the dining room on
the main level. It gives the couple more than enough
space for the Christmas trees they cut themselves.
Home Fires
Energy loss is expected in a house
with so much glass, but Steve isn’t worried about
it.
“If we need more BTUs,
I’ll just cut more firewood,” he says.
He’ll gladly trade a few hours of work in the
woods for such a spectacular view.
The Bilben home has two fireplaces,
including a gas unit on the main level. The other,
which burns wood, comes from Walker’s own Wilkening
Fireplace Company. The gas unit is faced with Cultured
Stone, although some natural rock was mixed in.
“It’s kind of a
guessing game with visitors as to who can find the
real rocks,” Steve says. “Only one person
has been able to guess right.”
Let There Be Light
The Bilbens had always heard log
homes were rather dark inside. So, along with the front
windows, they installed skylights above the main entry
way and the upstairs bathrooms.
“When I walk by them,
I always have to see if somebody left a light on,” Steve
says.
Open, light and airy, the couple’s
home also feels cozy.
“We have a friend who
has a log home, and she said it’s the only
home she’s lived in where when you walk in
it feels like it’s hugging you,” Steve
says. “Now, we’ve got that, too.”
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