Houzz Tour: A Modern Take on a Montana Log House
After designing a house in the scorching climate of Tucson, Arizona, without air conditioning, architect Arthur Andersson brought a similar concept to a much chillier region. “I said let’s do a house in Montana that doesn’t have any central heat,” he says.
When his client’s initial shock wore off, Andersson got to work designing a series of buildings — a separate master house, guest house, lodge house and kitchen structure — that would form a modern camp-like atmosphere for the couple, their kids and grandkids to vacation throughout the year. He skipped the HVAC system and instead created an innovative insulation method of stacked cordwood that allows the home to harness heat from radiant floor heating and several wood-burning fireplaces.
Houzz at a Glance
What it is: An all-year getaway for three generations
That’s interesting: Stacked cordwood makes up much of the home’s insulation.
Surprise: A pulley raises a glass wall inside.
From the architect: “It certainly doesn’t look like a house.”
The structures dot a sloping landscape in northern Montana overlooking Flathead Lake. When the couple — they’re both in real estate — bought the property, there was only a 10-foot-by-15-foot cabin on site that had been built in 1920.
They wanted separate buildings for a camp feel and privacy for their grown kids and their families.Andersson’s approach was all about creating convertible spaces that could be shut off to keep the heat in when the temperature drops to zero, but open completely in summer.
This is the view when approaching the master house. Long-stem native grasses on the roof add insulation but also make the house look as if it were just part of the landscape. Andersson says he drew inspiration from environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy for the master house. He used a minimal material palette of wood and stone to create something that feels less like a piece of architecture and more like a piece of art. “From a distance you don’t know what it is,” Andersson says. “It certainly doesn’t look like a house. It doesn’t even look like a building.”
The client had asked Andersson for a log house, but the architect didn’t want to mimic the framed Sheetrock houses with logs stuck on the outside that are typical of the area. Instead, he developed a steel framing system that holds cordwood from Douglas fir, grand fir and ponderosa pine found on the property, much of which was diseased and needed to be removed anyway.
Andersson kiln-dried and cleaned up the wood to create the exposed insulation, which covers double-thick masonry walls that include a moisture barrier.“When you’re that rigorous with your materials, there’s a level of abstraction that the building takes on,” he says. “It’s not encumbered by busy architectural details.”
Andersson, of Andersson-Wise Architects, created a portion in the wall for a window, with its own steel frame, so that it can be loaded up with wood during the winter. Then, as the homeowner burns through the wood, the window brings in more and more light.
See more of this Montana Log House
Houzz Tour: A Modern Take on a Montana Log House
