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Larry and Sheila's Lakefront Yankee Barn

As anyone who has built a house surely knows, the design experience is an ongoing process of adjustment and adaptation. In the case of Larry and Sheila's Yankee Barn, the building site became the crucial factor— a study in adapting their needs to the requirements of the natural landscape.

Larry and Sheila lived in New York at the time and had a condo in this lakefront community. They became very fond of the area and decided to build their retirement home here. As part of the research process, they stayed overnight in Yankee Barn's furnished model home in Grantham, N.H. "It was great to have the experience of living in the house before building—we'd highly recommend it to anyone considering a Yankee Barn." Sheila said.

They loved the model home—"we especially valued the warmth and tradition of the post and beams"—and were strongly committed to reproducing the model on their property. But as they began the design process with Bruce Parsons, Yankee Barn's senior planner, it became very apparent that the original proportions just wouldn't work on their site.

The view across Larry and Sheila's custom kitchen.

"It's not as though we had a wide choice of lots." Sheila mentioned. "This was just about the only lakefront site available, and we had to adapt to it."

A Novel Design Solution

Yankee Barn came up with the unique solution of 'turning the model 90 degrees' (see the "Design Notes" for details), and that raised some important design issues. "The thing that Bruce said that was really key was, instead of having the big windows at the end of the house, we began thinking about putting those windows in the middle." Larry said. "That was the key to making this house work on this site … it really brought it open." Bruce added, "One of the things we gained from doing that was, now all the rooms had the view … whether it was upstairs or down, every space in the home gets to enjoy it."

"One of the things we loved about the process of working with Bruce and Yankee Barn was, we were able to modify the plans to suit our needs." Larry said. "We 'pushed out' the back wall almost four feet, giving us much more usable space in the living room. Being a lakefront location we obviously wanted a wall of windows and we were able to say, 'put up some more windows.' The original design wasn't long enough in the master bedroom and the bath, so we added four feet. Every place we did that, you can see it made an incredible difference … a huge gain."

Bruce added, "But the challenge was, every time we made an addition, to go back to our design department and ask, 'Can we do this? Will the community permit it? Will it fit on this site?' It was that collaboration that made their home possible in this location. The model was a great starting point—Larry and Sheila could really get an understanding of how the spaces worked—but we were able to evolve that design into what they have now.

The Importance of Deck Design

"The other piece I remember is our conversation around decks", Bruce said, "how decks affect view, how they can affect the light in the rooms below them.

"Larry and Sheila wanted an open, accessible first-floor space with lots of natural light, and that's why we built the decks off to the side, as opposed to the typical center placement. We ended up with a very private deck off the master bedroom, and a spacious deck opening from the kitchen."

Adjustments in the kitchen required a SubZero refrigerator only 2' deep, allowing the kitchen wall to move out one foot … "and it made a huge difference," said Larry.

"There's a psychological and emotional investment in building a home." Sheila said. Key choices are made all along the way and you can't be absolutely sure how things will work until you see the finished product. Now that we're here, I can't imagine the house any other way."

When Larry and Sheila 'fell in love' with the Yankee Barn model home, they felt strongly that this was the house they wanted for their retirement. But, as Bruce Parsons discovered, the slope and proportions of the building site made it impossible to fit that structure onto the land.

"In the simplest terms, the Yankee Barn design breaks out into three elements—1/3 great room, 1/3 kitchen and dining, and 1/3 media room/master bedroom." said Bruce. "To get that floorplan onto this particular site, the redesign involved splitting those elements into separate parts, rotating each element 90 degrees, then reassembling them to create the entire house.

"This involved some significant modifications to our typical plan— moving the great room windows from their usual location on the endwall to a center location, modifying the deck treatment to allow for natural light in the walkout basement, and adding a "ridge dormer" in the great room to create a more expansive space.

"But it's that process of working with the customer to 'push our envelope' that makes us evolve … that gives us a 'toolkit' of techniques so we can customize a structure to work for the site, and truly bring the homeowner's vision to reality."

Yankee Barn Homes is pleased to welcome Manny Jasus as our staff architect. A graduate of Norwich University with a MA in architecture, Manny's role will be to take Yankee Barn's existing product line and develop a broad range of custom options.

"We start with a 'kit of parts' and a basic footprint, and then broaden that line into a huge variety of alternatives and possibilities. Because our building system is so flexible, it's almost endless as to what can be added. The whole process is based on open communication between our designers, our technical department, the shop, the builder, and most important, the owners."

Manny's experience with the "schematic design" process — taking basic ideas and sketches and turning them into realistic designs — will be very important in integrating innovations into the YBH building system. Right now he's creating a set of cupola designs, and will be working with the technical department to integrate true 3D rendered artwork into the presentation process. "It's an open and creative environment here at Yankee Barn, and that's what I like best … the reward in following through the process to the final product."

Although design and engineering officer Russ Prudhomme was quick to qualify his statement by saying, "We're really a team here, from the planners to the shop," it quickly became apparent that the Yankee Barn technical department views themselves as the nucleus of the company—"everything we do as a company comes through us."

The Tech Dept prepares and verifies building plans for every Yankee Barn structure. Technical manager Jon Sevigny is responsible for the initial set of plans. "Our planners create the first set of sketches in consultation with the customer," Jon says, "then we take the two dimensional plans and extend them out into 3D. We build each building on the computer before it goes into the shop."

Sean Marsh, senior technical manager, supervises all "shop drawings"—the instructions that the construction shop uses to build the various components. "Everyone in Tech reviews everyone else's work before it ever gets to the shop. We check for roof angles, traffic patterns, design symmetry … even things like headroom issues, compliance with energy codes and shipping requirements. We're constantly looking as our process evolves."

Sean consults with the shop on construction issues, and also with builders in the field. "The shop sees this as a bunch of individual pieces, but we have to understand the complete building—how all those pieces fit together as a whole."

YBH now ships its products to 48 different states, so each set of plans must be verified for code compliance in a particular region. "For example, snow loading around the country can vary from 20 pounds per square foot, all the way up to 200 pounds per square foot in areas like Wyoming and Colorado.

"The new International Residential Building Codes are much more strict than the older codes," said Russ, "things like lateral wind design for hurricanes, or seismic strength in earthquake areas. We did a job in Rhode Island which required 110 mph wind loading—but the customer wanted 130 mph protection, using high-strength glass that can take the impact of a 2x4 fired from an air cannon!

"We tackle each project as it comes … and one thing YBH is very good at is covering the details. We're very strict with ourselves."

Though Tech is proud of their central position in the company, Russ is quick to spread the credit. "The way to look at this company is, it's a big team. It's not that the pitcher is the star here— it's a well-oiled machine that just works really well."

The Yankee Barn Tech department is responsible for creating and checking the sequence of plans that create a Yankee Barn—'progress plans' (the initial formal presentation to the customer), 'construction plans' for review by builders and financing, and 'build plans', evaluated for structural integrity and code compliance.

"The company has been very supportive in terms of design technology." Russ Prudhomme said. "We have customized CAD packages, including advanced techniques like parametric modeling where we actually build the structure as a 3D model. We can 'slice through' the building from any angle, to see how the pieces fit together." Tech uses advanced web technology to interact with the YBH planners in West Chester, PA, using internet conferencing programs to mark up plans interactively. "It works great, a really efficient system," says Jon Sevigny.

Next in the Tech department will be a system that takes the CAD drawings and creates a full set of interior and exterior 3D renderings, to give customers and builders a "photo-realistic" view of their new Yankee Barn.

Main posts installed for a
40' x 60' barn

First roof panel is lifted into
place

Frame and roof panels complete, siding being installed

Finished barn

©2006 Yankee Barn Homes, Tony Hanslin, Chairman and CEO