In the 1960s, Betsy Frederick’s grandparents’ property in Owls Head, Maine, was struck by lightning. It caused a fire that cleared a half acre on a small hilltop, close to where members of her family still live. Wanting to raise their two children there, Betsy, a midwife, and her husband, Andrew, who runs his design-build firm Croft (which makes carbon-sequestering prefab panels), located a site on the hill to create a new home for their family. Andrew relied on his architecture education and carpentry background to build it largely himself, by hand.

Part of the go-it-yourself plan was to avoid labor costs, which would have eaten into the budget, but Andrew and Betsy also wanted to touch every part of the process to create the healthiest and most environmentally friendly home they could. That meant no paint and no diesel-powered machinery, among other criteria. Keeping the plan small at 1,040 square feet across two structures—one for living areas and another containing the primary suite, the two connected internally and with outdoor walkways—gave them a big advantage when it came time to build.

A Magical Location

Betsy: The design for the house really came together after we decided on the site, which we chose for the elevation and flora: beautiful huckleberry bushes, juniper, and low bush blueberry. We wanted to emphasize that uniqueness and not destroy it.

Andrew: We built on bedrock, which is essentially a ledge, with a nine-foot vector between the highest and the lowest point of the home’s footprint. Because windows are so pricey, we positioned the house on the land in a way that would deliver the most natural light to the interiors in every season.

An Honest Design

Andrew: After our first daughter was born, I asked myself, Why would we build with anything that we wouldn’t want our toddler to put in her mouth? Rather than build a giant house with damaging materials that are unhealthy, we wanted to create a smaller one and make it out of nicer things.

Betsy: We tried to do things in the least toxic way possible and sourced lumber locally.

Andrew: Being familiar with the typical approach to home construction, I was curious: Could you do it with just humans and without heavy equipment? If you were to just go gather the materials and make a shelter, what does that take?

The Build

Andrew: I had a good friend who was helping ten to fifteen hours a week, but I did the rest of the build solo, working nonstop for eighteen months. We excavated by hand with a shovel and a geologist hammer and pinned the house to the site’s bedrock with concrete piers. We framed the building, built and programmed the heat-recovery ventilators, and built the kitchen cabinets from a maple tree that we felled at our last house. We also used a structural roof ridge, which allowed us to have a fully open cathedral ceiling. We had a party with two friends to celebrate lifting the ridge beam into place.

“We ran windows all the way to the ceiling so that you have a view of the sky virtually anywhere in the house.”
—Andrew Frederick, designer and resident

Lessons Learned

Betsy: It amazes me every day how big the house feels, given that it’s really quite small. I think we executed on the vision that we had for the home in that there are just all these pretty unique moments that happen as you’re moving through it.

Andrew: If you’re doing all the labor yourself, you’ve essentially removed fifty percent of the costs, so you can get roughly twice the house in terms of quality that you would otherwise. We have plaster finishes, hardwood cabinetry, and marble countertops. Even our bedding has nontoxic organic fibers. Betsy and I are the sort of people who will forgo a lot in order to seek out one nice thing. And I think that played out in the creation of our home.

Project Credits:

Designer: Andrew Frederick, Croft

—

Head back to the November/December 2023 issue homepage