Coal Creek Canyon – A picture of Fallingwater, the iconic Pennsylvania house Frank Lloyd Wright designed in 1935, hangs above Robb LeChevalier’s bed. It exemplifies Wright’s organic approach to architecture, designing structures that appear to grow naturally out of the site.
Fallingwater is symbolic in many ways. It was the inspiration for LeChevalier’s dream house near Boulder, a 3,800-square-foot work of art situated atop a granite outcropping. It also serves as a testimony to man’s tenacity – and his folly.
For LeChevalier, a 51-year-old electrical engineer, building the house has brought 10 years of unimaginable highs, like defying the laws of construction as he molded walls and flooring to fit craggy boulders. It also has brought the unbearable lows of losing a marriage and compiling a million-dollar debt that left him without the cash to properly furnish his home.
“The house is unofficially on the market, but I’ll only sell it to the right buyer,” said LeChevalier. Someone with $1.4 million and an appreciation for Wrightean details.
LeChevalier and his wife, Patricia, moved from California to Colorado in 1994. A Realtor showed them the plot of land in Coal Creek Canyon, and a friend mentioned a San Francisco architect who was eager to design a home.
The engineer and the architect bonded over a common appreciation of Wright, but LeChevalier wanted to blast enough rocks from the site to build a ranch-style home surrounded by boulders. The architect wanted a multilevel house built on top of the boulders. He prevailed.
When LeChevalier began shopping for a contractor and got a bid of $410,000, he decided to do the job himself. “I thought the house should cost $350,000 to build,” he said. He wishes he had listened to the contractor.
Just as Fallingwater ended up three times over budget, this home cost about $1.25 million, three times more than the original bid. LeChevalier thought construction would take six to nine months. It took 10 years.
“I kept running out of money,” LeChevalier explained. “At one point, I carried $150,000 on my credit cards and had refinanced several times.”
He and Patricia lived in a trailer on the property for four months, then moved into the shell of the house. At first they lived in the master closet, then moved to one of the home offices. Five years into the project, the marriage dissolved.
When work crews couldn’t figure out how to construct the nonstandard details that make the house unique, LeChevalier did the work himself, investing an estimated 15,000 hours over the years.
As an engineer, part of his job is believing that every challenge comes with a solution, he said. “The hard part is knowing how long it will take and how much it will cost.”
Anchored in bedrock, the house opens into a foyer that is built into an outcropping of rocks. Cantilevered stairs take visitors up to the living area, then up again to two bedrooms and two offices. Walls of windows look out on pine and aspen groves, and a large, all-glass sunroom adjacent to the kitchen brings the outdoors in. The radiant heated floors are covered in polished Crema Marfil – a stone tile from Spain. Cabinets and trim are hand-polished maple.
Even more breathtaking are the details: floor tile that is sculpted around the exposed granite boulders, making it look as if nothing is man-made; metal railings that are embedded in the wall, rather than attached to it; sliding glass panels around the living room fireplace; lighted glass blocks below the master bedroom’s sensuously curved fireplace.
Ultimately, they all carried hefty price tags. Building the frame on rock required walls a foot thick, took one year and cost $500,000. The living room fireplace cost $50,000 and two years of work after LeChevalier discovered major flue problems.
How would he change the light bulbs installed behind the glass blocks on the master suite fireplace? Solution: From the utility room below.
And then there were the kinds of water problems that also plagued Wright.
“It has taken me nine years to figure out how to stop the water leaks in certain windows,” said LeChevalier.
The self-proclaimed perfectionist calls his adventure “Mr. Blandings on Steroids Meets Godzilla at Shawshank Prison.”
With a $633,000 first mortgage, a $250,000 second mortgage, $100,000 in credit-card debt and $150,000 in loans from family and friends, LeChevalier is saddled with $7,500 monthly payments. He earns the money by working in Irvine, Calif., which means he spends only weekends at his Boulder County dream house.
“But if I hadn’t completed (the house) – even though it put me into major debt – it would have been a testimony to failure,” LeChevalier said.
Details of Robb LeChevalier’s home
Asking price: $1.4 million
Square footage: 3,800 square feet on multiple levels
Acreage: 1.54 acres
Property taxes: Approximately $4,000/year
Amenities: Exposed interior rock, wood-beam vaulted ceilings, stainless-steel accents, three fireplaces, two whirlpool tubs, radiant heated floors, A/V and Internet wiring throughout, custom cabinetry and built-in bookshelves, Brazilian granite counters, Spanish stone floors
Schools: Boulder Valley School District, Nederland Elementary and Nederland Middle/Senior High School
Information: 303-642-1405
Building your dream house
Robb LeChevalier made many of the same mistakes homeowners make when building their dream house, said Bob Formissano, the home repair guide for About.com. To avoid those problems, consider the following, all of which boil down to dollars and cents.
DON’T
Be your own contractor. “People often think they can save 15 percent on a house by being their own contractor,” said Formissano. “What they don’t understand is the time and frustration involved. Besides, subcontractors rarely give their best bids to homeowner/contractors.”
Make a decision based on price-per-square-foot costs. “It’s an inaccurate way to decide what you can afford,” said Formissano, “because it doesn’t factor in all the project costs, like landscaping, driveway, septic system, etc.”
Get caught in the trap of multiple “small” upgrades. People tend to drive the budget up with “a little change here, a little change there,” because they rationalize that this is their one shot at building a dream house. “Most budgets are broken by $100 changes,” said Formissano, “not $1,000 changes.”
Pick a floor plan that has lots of angles or a complicated roof design. You can have an interesting house by aligning spaces on an axis, but as LeChevalier learned, the more complex the design, the higher the costs. And ultimately, construction complexity doesn’t add to resale value.
DO
Carefully select a builder. You want someone who listens to you and explains things to your satisfaction. Ask for references and check them out.
Make sure you have 5 percent to 10 percent of the project costs set aside for contingencies or extras. “If you’re building a $500,000 house, make sure you have $25,000-$50,000 set aside for an upgrade you really want or a problem that hikes the cost up,” said Formissano.
Make sure the floor plan works for you. Is the kitchen so far from the garage that carrying groceries will be like a marathon? Is the only way to access your closet through the steamy master bath?
Make decisions in a timely manner. As the house gets closer to completion, homeowners are asked to make more decisions in a shorter amount of time. Since time is money, dragging out a choice – for fear that a better one will appear tomorrow – will drive the budget skyward.
