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Friends and Family Collaborate to Build a Log Home in Vermont for an Active Couple

Story by John Friske • Photos by George Riley

Reprinted with permission of Country's Best Log Homes, July, 2000.

The greatroom is focused on the fireplace and stone wall, which Ray salvaged from the old cabin that he and his wife Maureen lived in for many years.

Ray and Maureen DesRoches received the logs for their log home in Vermont in June l984. While nearby friends housed them, the DesRoches and more than a dozen neighbors, friends and relatives built the structure of the home in about three days.

Says Maureen, "We built the home, and we built the family. It brought everybody closer together. It was a wonderful experience and now our home is part of our soul."

Rural Vermont is classic New England. Blazing autumn colors; deep blankets of snow in winter; lush, green landscape in the summer; dairy farming -- this is what Ray and Maureen fell in love with more than 30 years ago.

The couple, originally from Bloomfield, Connecticut, knew they would want to retire to Vermont. This was the place where they could cross-country ski from their front door, where Ray could bow hunt in the fall and where Maureen could spot birds in the spring.

Long before they built the log home, they built a cabin, (standard stick built construction) on the land. This was their getaway while they raised their family -- two boys and two girls. Ray called the old cabin a "life preserver," a place where they could regain their sanity and let everyday stresses dissipate. "Every weekend we took off, and the car automatically turned north," Ray explained. Ray had built the stone foundation wall and fireplace structure that was the central element in the old cabin, and was to become the same for the log home. They were happy with the original cabin. In fact, Ray and Maureen had housed the neighbors while the neighbors' home was under construction.

The home overlooks a spring-fed pond that was dug in 1979. Ray and Maureen stock it with trout.

It was during this time that the couple got to know the late Doug French, then president of Northeastern Log Homes. "I asked him if he thought I could do something around the stone wall in the living room, and he said he didn't think it would create a problem. So I drew up a plan that I liked, and Doug said it looked fine," recalls Ray.

When they tore down the old cabin, they saved the old stone wall and the large mantel that was in it. They dragged away and burned everything else.

But the cost was memories lost. Over the years, Ray and Maureen had entertained many families, friends and relatives at their old special getaway. Three honeymoons had been spent there. Many people had fallen in love with the homey old cabin and, when Ray and Maureen decided to replace it, these folks were upset at the loss of a special place. "All our friends had a fit," Ray states.

"When it came time to build the log home I had in mind, I was fortunate enough to have been in the trades, and I knew a lot of people who were contractors and subcontractors," Ray continues. "So 17 people came up for a long weekend, and together we put up the new house. Four of the people were major contractors who really know how to raise the big stuff.

"We fed 17 people three meals a day, supplemented with two coffee breaks," Maureen adds. "I did some precooking in Connecticut before we came up. We served everybody turkey dinners and spaghetti dinners; everything was homemade. We stayed with friends up the hill, the couple whose log home we had helped build a few years earlier. When their home was being built, they stayed with us. So they did the same for us when we built ours."

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