The Lakehouse Beginnings

When mom and dad purchased the summer property there was a small shed and a horsebarn on it. Numerous walnut and hazelnut trees graced the lakefront, while several mature apple trees were set further back. Being as several friends shared the three acres and that regulations were such that they could only build one home on it, one couple built a home and the other two couples converted the horsebarn into a duplex to be used for weekend get-a-aways.

The first years of going to the to the lake  were rather primitive kind of visits . . . not the kind I got too excited about, expecting a child and running after a toddler. There was no running water or indoor plumbing. Every time the family went, there was a work project to do, which began with cleaning out the manure in the barn, pouring a concrete floor and eventually framing rooms and making it into a dwelling.

However, I can guess that it was a highlight for my parents when we would show up. Two-year olds don't see the mess . . . they only see Oma and Opa, 'petty fowlers' and lots of room to run around.

 

By 1980 the first floor was framed in and roughly finished, but my dad had an idea on how to create more space on our side of the barn. Sometimes he had crazy ideas and sometimes those ideas worked. In those days a structural engineer was not consulted . . . it was a simple matter of drawing up the A- frame roof and deciding where it would be cut and lifted.

My sister, Monika was engaged to Bob that summer, so this was his first opportunity to impress his father-in-law to be. He brought along his boss, an experienced builder - a relative of the family. My H had also had some framing experience, and judging by the photo, I see other friends who were quite eager to see how this would work. Walls were framed in the attic, under both sides of the pitched roof. As they lay ready to be raised, the roof was cut out and lifted, held by several men, while the others put the framed wall in place.

Here you see the wall coming up under the raised roof. Bob's boss, Bob and my H are holding up the roof. They did this on both sides. I could barely watch, praying, but still afraid the whole roof would come down on them. 

 

But today . . . thirty-two years later . . .  that roof  is still being held up by those walls. Four bedrooms are tucked under that roof, two on each side. Later on we added a garage on our side and after a number of years, a games-room was finished over the garage by extending the A- frame roof. It all worked out. And so goes another story about the cabin that we now refer to as the lakehouse.