This New Hampshire Log Home Draws on Old Western Style

Embodying the Spirit of the Old West

This New Hampshire log home embodies the pioneering spirit of the Old West. The log home has a modest exterior that conceals a stunning interior with soaring 18-foot ceilings. The log home has a Western style that is emphasized with Douglas fir timbers in a king-post timber frame off the front porch and rear deck. The log home has high-performance insulated vinyl that gives the front door exceptional functionality, while its walnut look adds natural style. From the moment the log home owner Gary Wells began visiting his son in Lake Tahoe, he felt an affinity to its architectural design, with log and timber homes set against rugged terrain and thickets of ponderosa pine, white fir, and aspen. It was how he envisioned the land had looked when pioneers first discovered and settled in the region.

Realizing a Dream of a Log Home

Wells and his wife began thinking about moving to Nevada and fulfilling the dream of building and living in a log home. When their son unexpectedly moved back to the northeast, they dropped Nevada from their plans, but Gary's dream of a Western-inspired log house design continued to grow. Over the next decade, the couple assembled their ideas. They found a log house floor plan in a magazine they wanted to customize and a property near Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, overlooking the White Mountains. After researching numerous log home companies, Real Log Homes emerged as their producer of choice due to their willingness to work with Wells' floor plan and respect for their log house budget. Equally important, they loved the company's sophisticated, dovetail joinery.

Architectural Features and Design Efficiency

Set on a hillside, the Wells' log home is a 1,808-square-foot single-story ranch crafted of white pine cut in a log profile Real Log Homes calls the Classic Appalachian. Its 12-inch height requires fewer log courses to reach the ceiling, creating greater efficiencies with building materials and labor, as well as protection against the elements. The exterior of the log house faces is flat with a scooped chinking groove at the top. The modest but durable exterior belies the grand nature of the interior's main living space. The log home has soaring, 18-foot ceilings, with sweeping mountain views, and rustic warmth, with a great room that feels grounded in strength and hospitality the moment you cross the threshold and enter its embrace.

Structural Stability and Interior Design

The long log walls are broken and stiffened by the shear walls extending about 4 feet into the great room. In addition to adding structural stability to the log house design, the sheer walls serve another purpose as they define the great room zones, the foyer, living, dining, and kitchen areas. The log house cathedral ceiling is supported with a ridge beam and Douglas fir roof rafters, which emphasizes the towering space even more. The log home has wide maple planks with a scraped, weathered appearance which comprise most of the interior flooring.

Kitchen Aesthetics and Custom Touches

The kitchen cupboards are knotty alder with a matching island and elevated breakfast bar topped by a rough-cut piece of lumber with a live edge. The kitchen island is stained in Boot Hill Grey by Behr to match the exterior rough-cut siding, a look that is repeated in the kitchen range hood, fireplace, guest bathroom vanity, and the island's chandelier, which is a rustic box beam suspending three pendant lights, which was designed by Gary. The counters are capped with quartz in a color combination of rust, gray, and mocha.