Dream House

THREE YEARS AGO, my son Ken decided he wanted to build a house. He would do most of the work himself and take a year off to do it. “What do you think, Dad?” he asked. He was fifty-six, a father of two daughters and a son. He didn’t need my permission, but I delighted in the breadth of his ambition.

As he outlined the specifications for the two-floor, three bedroom structure, I began to recognize his project was more elaborate than I’d originally thought. And then this: attached to the home would be a hangar. The dream was getting bolder—and more costly—by the minute. But also, I had to admit, more intriguing. His brothers and I all love to fly. Ken rents planes now but has bought a Van’s Aircraft RV-10 kit to build his own plane in his spare time. Having nearby hangar space would give him ready access.

With twenty years of experience building and remodeling upscale homes, Ken had the contacts and the know-how to see it through. But quitting his business for a year? That made me nervous. I’m a retired CPA who has dabbled in land development on the side. My focus naturally leans toward the bottom line. I know dreams of this magnitude don’t flourish on wishful thinking. Still, as wild as it sounded, his dream seemed doable. He spent many weeks drawing up construction cost and time estimates. As the plans materialized, my elder worries started to relax. His children and I—we all started getting excited about the idea. It was happening.

That spring Ken flew to Sisters, Oregon, for a visit. He guessed that my old Ford F150 was resting unused, as was my Mahindra tractor and a flatbed trailer. Soon they were hooked up and headed east to Bel Air Estates, a fly-in residential community sixty miles northwest of Chicago, where he’d bought a plot.

In the coming months, I texted often and visited at times to check on progress. At 87 years old, I did what I could—like trash cleanup, scrap burning, wall bracing, tile toting, rock picking, tractor landscaping, driveway leveling, and getting tired. “Well, Dad, looks like our roles have changed,” he said. “Now you’re the helper and I’m the boss.”

Smart aleck!

In October 2022, heavy rains flooded the daylight basement excavation. Ken had framed the footings and was ready to pour. But the walls, drenched through, hemorrhaged inwardly, and buried the forms. There was no way to use the tractor to clear that mess. Hand shoveling and cleaning several hundred feet of muck-filled forms took days. Winter came early that year and lasted long. The house was nowhere close to being sealed by Christmas.

And it was cold. On one visit, we warmed up by crouching next to the trash barrel that held burning lumber tailings and packaging material. Then we went back to pounding nails. Like most construction projects, this one went over budget and took longer than planned. But it got finished.

On another trip, I became mesmerized by the structure’s incredible forest of trusses. This was no simple roof. Neighbors stopped to ask, “Are you the guy building his own house? I mean, really building it yourself?” They were caught up in the audacity of the dream, too.

Through this process, I’ve learned that I have as much admiration for a bold idea as I do for the persistence it takes to follow through on it. Ken did both. He dreamed up a house, and then he built it.

When I was sixteen years old, my dad built our new house. I loved calculating how many nails it would require, the hours Dad put in after working on the farm, what supply yards provided the materials and so on—the concerns of a future CPA. My plan was to nail these details to an attic rafter, some secret place for a lucky grandchild to find and revel in the discovery. I don’t remember if I ever did that, but I know Dad’s dream is still alive.