Southern Comfort in a Straw Bale Home

By Claire Anderson
Published on June 1, 2004
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The precedent-setting straw bale home of Elise Lang and Michael Pierce.
The precedent-setting straw bale home of Elise Lang and Michael Pierce.
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The reclaimed lumber on the walls and an old claw-foot tub give rustic charm to the master bathroom.
The reclaimed lumber on the walls and an old claw-foot tub give rustic charm to the master bathroom.
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Under the Southern Building Code, which we followed at the time Elise and Michael's house was being built, there's nothing that said you couldn't build a nonload-bearing straw bale home.
Under the Southern Building Code, which we followed at the time Elise and Michael's house was being built, there's nothing that said you couldn't build a nonload-bearing straw bale home.

Near the end of a dirt road that weaves in and out of the woods outside Farmington, Ga., sits a tasteful Southern farmhouse owned by Elise Lang and Michael Pierce. Its wide hip roof and the deep eaves that cover the wraparound porch echo the era of mint juleps, seersucker suits and the sweet twang of banjos.

But look a little closer and you’ll find a house that puts a new twist on tradition — the “truth window,” a small 6-by-6-inch hole on the north wall of the foyer, says it all: This house is built with straw bales.

Standing in the home’s entryway, with its tall ceilings rising to a 20-foot peak and dramatic arched passageways to the home’s interior, you can easily overlook the truth window. At first, the unplastered patch seems like an imperfection in this nearly new home, but it reveals what makes Elise and Michael’s house so distinctive: This house is a straw bale structure — the first permitted in Oconee County, Ga., according to officials there, and according to the couple, perhaps the first in the state.

Dixie Meets Determination

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