Glen Falls Estate
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The client that contracted me to build the Glen Falls house had come to the open house of the house that I had built for my own personal residence. He was sufficiently impressed that he asked me, "Do you think you could build me a mountain house implementing the knowledge and techniques used in the planning and construction of your own house?" I told him that I could not in good conscience do otherwise.
My client had had a less than pleasant homeowner's experience with the house that he had just sold in the Atlanta Metro area. He had lived in a house that was a stick-framed house with a synthetic stucco siding (EFIS). As many of you know EFIS has gained an infamous reputation nation wide for its many inherent problems. It is a coating that was specifically developed for the Northwest where the dry air and the cold winters have a devastating effect on mortar and mineral based stucco. EFIS was a good match for this Northwest environment; however its use in the Southeast has had disastrous results.
Having inspected and worked on hundreds of these houses in the Southeast most of the houses have had insurmountable problems. Admittedly many of the problems I have seen were not just a problem of the material but the improper use and installation of the material. The most miserable abuse of the EFIS siding has been that builders have used it as though it were a substitute for concrete foundations. They have built framed houses covered with EFIS with the framing below grade.
EFIS is not a coating suited for the climate of the Southeast. EFIS is a plastics based mineral coating applied over polystyrene foam sheathing. This makes a highly moisture impervious and a high-energy efficient coating; however those positive factors also make it a detrimental coating for our environment. The Southeast has a significant amount of rainfall and most of the year the relative humidity is fairly high. Condensation is a constant issue in the Southeast because of the high relative humidity and the changes in temperature between night and day. EFIS is practically impervious to moisture from the outside but this is also true from the inside of the coating, therefore condensation that builds up inside the walls has no place to go, thus becoming a degenerate presence for the spawning of fungi and for deteriorating of the wood framing material as well as a much desired environment by termites for the propagation of their colonies.
My client, in order to sell his house had to do what the EFIS manufacturing companies have proposed are the so called solutions for correcting the inherent problems with the use of EFIS in the Southeast in order. This was a significant cost to him not to mention that because of the infamous reputation of EFIS he ended up selling his house for much less than he could have expected in a prime seller's market.
With this painful experience he was determined that in his next house of which he would make a very large financial investment it was going to be an investment with which he could rely.
My client chose a gorgeous 12+ acres tract on the side of Moon Mountain just south of Highlands, North Carolina, directly above Glen Falls, overlooking Blue Valley and the majestic Rabun's Bald Mountain. Though a beautiful setting it also made for a very challenging place for building a house. The two largest problems immediately were to locate a place on the tract where he could maximize the view, yet find a desirable plain on the slope of the mountain that could accommodate both the house and the septic field for the size of house he wanted to build.
After finding such a location the next major issue was what would need to be done to overcome the very significant issue of negative elevation towards the house. The driveway was excavated, sloping and draining it to divert a major portion of the surface water coming off the mountain from crossing over the location for the house. We next determined that the elevation change from where the driveway ended and the front and rear of the proposed house were to be, there was an elevation change of 22 feet.
This meant that the ground level entrance grade once finished to the front of the house needed to rise above the bottom level basement grade 24 feet to overcome negative elevation and the problem of surface water running against the house. This meant that two twelve foot stories would need to be built with a major portion of the sides and fronts of these stories being below ground and then two stories would be built above grade.
Because this house is four stories of solid concrete including exterior, interior and floors the foundation slab has to bear an enormous load. We built a monolithic concrete slab that averages a thickness of 16 inches with at least 6 tons of reinforcement steel in the concrete. The slab was pinned to the bedrock and a retaining wall at the front and sides of the bottom foundation walls are 24 inches thick with huge concrete reinforced dead men anchors tied back into the mountain.
This was necessary because of the very large potential hydraulic load of twenty-four feet of soil at the front of the house and also because of the real possibility of seismic movement in the mountain. Furthermore the structure is built as a monolithic unit with threaded rods running from the slab all the way to the roof plates. This design is intended to allow the entire house to move as a unit with out coming apart if there was movement of soil or the rock. To help eliminate any doubts of the engineering and to help reduce the possibility of excessive hydraulic pressure to the front of the house we back filled the first story and a half with sand rather than soil and installed numerous French drains to disperse and drain off ground water.
For the first two floors below grade we chose American Polysteel insulated concrete forms for the exterior and interior walls. This choice was made because the high thermal value and strength of this type of system.
At the top of the Polysteel form walls we installed eight inch thick Hebel engineered floor panels. These panels have the same insulating and sound isolation value as other Hebel wall building systems. This therefore virtually makes a sound proof barrier between floors. The top two floors interior and exterior walls all the way up to the ridge line are constructed of the Hebel block building system.
My client's house without a doubt is a virtual fortress that will be enjoyed for centuries. It is designed as a mountain lodge with three separate self-contained living quarters with each having a ground level entrance and yet an interior stairwell connects all four floors. Each level has an expansive covered porch with a spectacular view of Blue Valley and Rabun's Bald and one can hear the sounds of the rushing waters of Glen Falls below. All together the house has 9 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, 3 great rooms, 3 dinning areas, 3 laundry areas, a large in home office, a large recreation room, a couple of dens and numerous walk in closets, a fairly large storage room and a mechanical room. All the floors have at least 10-foot ceilings. All the floors have hardwood flooring except the bottom floor and terrace, which is slate. Each floor has a large portion of the walls finished in solid hardwood paneling or hardwood wainscoting.
The balance of the walls and ceilings are finished with European style skip trowel hard coat plastering. All the moldings are custom-made hardwood molding and the interior doors are all custom made solid four paneled Maple or Poplar doors. All the cabinets are solid custom-made Maple cabinets and there are numerous custom made built in bookshelves or entertainment centers. There are three large native stack stone fire places with high energy efficient controlled draft wood stove inserts that are more than adequate to heat each area even in some of the bitter cold nights of the winter on the mountain. There is a huge generator and automatic switch panel that can provide all the current needed for the entire house when the power goes out, which tend to occur often in the mountains.
The house has R30 walls and of course the two bottom floors being below grade have a much higher R-value. The roof has an equivalent R-value of 46 designed like my own house.
Given these factors the heating and cooling loads for such a large house are extremely low. The entire house is heated and cooled with water through the air exchange system and each floor is individually thermostatically controlled even though they all share the same heating and cooling plant. A very high-energy efficient gas fired boiler produces the water for the household use and for the household heating system. A commercial chilling unit utilizing pressurized ammonia and propane gas to chill the water, which runs through the air exchange system providing cooling and control of relative humidity for the house during the summer. The two bottom floors have a fresh air intake hydrostatic air exchange system, while the top two floors have a standard type air exchanger. All the floors have a built in humidifier/dehumidifier to keep the relative humidity in the house at the optimal level both for one's respiratory health but also for the ideal conditions of all the hardwood doors, paneling, moldings and floors.
All the outside doors and windows of the house are of the highest energy efficiency and quality. All the windows and doors are aluminum clad to protect them from the elements and to make them low maintenance. All the windows on the rear of the house except for the fourth floor dormer are covered by a porch roof and the other windows on the side and dormer though aluminum clad are also protected with larger soffit and eave over hangs. Most of the exterior windows and doors were manufactured by Windsor Windows.
For the front of the house, which faces the North, and the down slope of the mountain and thus some rather severe conditions, we chose to use Pella double sash windows. This type of window gets its natural thermal qualities from a one inch air space between two pieces of glass with weep hole vents at the bottom of the inside sash. In my many years of restoration experience I have seen how standard thermal windows fail especially when they are in direct exposure to the elements. These windows' thermal seal can fail in as little as seven years. The windows become permanently fogged with condensation and consequently have lost their thermal value. For these reasons I like to use double sash windows in areas that are directly exposed or have more severe conditions, as in this application.
The exterior of the house has many unique details that give it an exquisite elegance. The roof is composed of heavy gauged, galvanized, architectural grade standing seam metal roof panels with a factory applied copper coating. This roofing system is applied over a Cypress lathe decking and has no exposed fasteners. The roof has very large gutters and downspouts to accommodate the often-torrential rainfall on the mountains and all the downspouts are connected to piping underground to route the water away from the house. The front entrance of the house is striking with an arched keystone portico resting on large fluted tapered columns.
All the windows and door at the front of the house have ornate dressings including large sills and keystone lentils made out of the Hebel block with white sand finished stucco. The corner quoins are fluted giving the effect of large fluted columns holding up the roof. All the gable-end eaves and the roof soffits are adorned with handcrafted dental brackets made of Douglas fir. Each floor is highlighted with a distinguishing drip cap between floors made of the Hebel block. At the bottom of the main floor drip cap in the front and side of the house there are the rich colors and textures of native North Carolina stack stone.
All the porches and entrances are adorned with elegant, functional and strong heavy cast iron handcrafted railings made by Moss Design Works in Roswell, Georgia.
This is truly an impressive mountain lodge set in a magnificently beautiful setting, which will be a reliable home for many generations to enjoy.
Please see our photo gallery for Glen Falls Estate.
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