Building the Traditional Hewn-Log Home

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During the past 24 years, Peter, Polly, and their children, Susie and Tim (both now grown), have cleared planting fields behind draft animals, raised a menagerie of homestead livestock, built several outbuildings of hewn timbers, become one of the finest family bluegrass bands around, and generally enjoyed the good life.

Peter has also built a number of log houses for others, gradually perfecting and modernizing his methods. He now does most of the cutting work with chain saws, but carefully retains the appearance and precise fitting usually associated only with traditional hand—tool building methods. He has also developed techniques that enable a small crew to construct any size log building with lightning speed; all preparatory work, such as hewing and notching, is done on the ground, so that when the logs are lifted into place on a wall they fit together so snugly that a cigarette paper can't be slipped between the corner joints.

Today, Peter Gott is putting his knowledge to work by teaching workshops in the techniques of traditional hewn-log construction. He also contracts his skills to log home fanciers who can't or don't choose to do their own building (though they often pitch in to help).

A DREAM REALIZED

Architecturally modern solar and earth-sheltered dwellings are playing an increasingly important role in today's energy-conscious housing movement. And rightly so. Still, no other type of shelter, no matter what its practical or technological virtues might be, is likely to replace the owner-built log home as the centerpiece in the dreams of many-possibly most -back-to-the-landers. (And, of course, these structures also fit well into the fantasies of people needing a vacation cottage or retirement house!)

I've long been one of those log cabin dreamers, so when I heard last fall that Peter Gott would be conducting a weeklong log-building workshop under the auspices of the Nantahala Outdoor Center in the mountains of western North Carolina, I wasted not a moment in signing up for the event. As it turned out, a score or so classmates and I were a diverse and inexperienced lot-but we were united by a shared desire to learn the skills Mr. Gott was there to teach. Together, under the guidance of Peter and his two skilled assistants, our motley crew of rank amateur log workers erected the pen (four full-height walls complete with door and window openings) as well as the ceiling joists and rafters of an attractive log house. And we did it in just seven days.

The highlights of that hands—on learning experience—fleshed out through a series of instructional visits with Peter both at his home and at the construction sites of a brace of his cabins-in-progress—are presented here to help hasten the realization of your log cabin dreams. That's not to say this mini-manual includes all you'll need to know in order to put up a log home (even most books making that boast fail to come through). But it will provide you with a thorough summary of the main points, as taught by Appalachia's master logsmith.

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