Artistic Expression

OM Construction suspends house over a cliff

By Chris Thompson
Editor at large

OM Construction spent nearly three years building a house for Ed and Joni Meyer on a cliff in Fish Creek, but Jeff Swanson said the finished product was well worth the wait.

"We certainly haven't done anything like this before," said Swanson, the president of OM, which is based in Green Bay. "I thank the owner for allowing us to build what was really a piece of artwork."

Swanson said he first got involved with the project in 1998, when the owner's architect, Dave Valentine, told Swanson he was working on an unusual house and needed a steel erector. Swanson said he jumped at the chance, came to terms with Valentine, met the owner and got started on the project.

"We've done a few high-end houses, but the architect understood the talent in Door County, and that the home builders aren't used to doing steel and concrete," he said. "So he knew he had to hire a commercial contractor to do the work. He wanted somebody attuned to reading architectural drawings and specifications."

The job started smoothly, Swanson said, with the contractors first blasting away rock so they could pour a large, concrete-mat foundation for the basement. They connected the foundation to the rock cliff with rock bolts.

"That kept the house from tipping over because more of the house was cantilevered than on the ground," Swanson said. "Only 24 square feet of the house actually touches the ground."

Suspended in midair

That left 2,200 square feet of the structure off the ground and cantilevered over the cliff. In order to make it work, Swanson said they built a four-story, structural-steel frame with trusses bolted to the frame for the living room, dining room, master bedroom and deck areas. The longest truss is 75 feet, meaning the house extends 75 feet into midair beyond the 24-square-foot base.

"The hardest part of the job was erecting the truss on the steel frame because the house is on the edge of a cliff," Swanson said. "So, we had to be behind the house with a crane swinging over the house. Once the truss was erected, it acted like a bridge from the wood floors to the ceiling truss."

With the framework in place, Swanson said contractors turned to some of the finer details. The house, for instance, didn't have many square corners, making it difficult to create an even transition from steel to wood.

"The wood had to be fitted to the structural steel, and it had to look like it flowed together," he said. "The carpentry work was highly detailed, and it was like fitting a yacht rather than a house because of the unusual corners."

Extravagant material

The nearly three-year length of the project didn't have as much to do with construction as it did materials, Swanson said. Meyer sent requests out around the world to make sure he fitted the house exactly as he wanted it.

"There were times when we had to stop and wait for other materials, decisions or weather," Swanson said. "The owner was not in a hurry to get this done. He wanted to do it the right way."

Swanson said Meyer picked out expensive tile from Israel, European-style fixtures and hardware from Italy. He chose a lighting system that changes color in the house to change the mood.

Swanson said he also had to find a place that could copper plate the normal spiral duct work and fancy diffusers. But after he found a place to do the work, Meyer told him he wanted an old-copper look, so Swanson's crew learned how to patina the material.

"It was a learning experience for everybody involved," Swanson said. "It was fun because we'd get together and discuss things, and we all provided different ideas. It was somewhat of a challenge in finding things that we thought were out there but didn't know for sure."

Looking for material sometimes caused months of delays.

"I don't even know how long we had to wait to find Wenga flooring because you have to find a tribe in Africa that's willing to sell the logs for it," Swanson said. "We never got it, but we stopped construction to wait and see if we could get it."

Swanson said that in the end, he doesn't regret a moment of the job.

"The owner was really into creating this house," he said. "I jokingly told our guys that I wouldn't pay them anymore because they were having too much fun. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for everyone."

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