Here it is. Worth looking at and discussing, due to its complexity.
I’ll post more as work progresses.
The mainfloor and upper are evident, but the house has a full-view walkout below. They whacked trees and did the dig so that the lower level has the same views as everything higher.
The view is pretty nice, with Lake Placid in the foreground and Whiteface mountain on the horizon.
Place has 6 bedrooms, 4 with ensuite glamour baths, the 2 remaining have a shared superbath. A media room is atop the garage. He’s maxed to the setbacks on both sides, with maybe 1/2 inch to spare.
Plan is a stock set from Alan Mascord Design. This owner probably has six other residences, one of them, a little 4 BR 2950 sf, just sold on the lot adjacent for 1.25 mil. This place will probably be occupied 6 weekends per year, max.
I’ll start a contract job across the street from this in May, and I am using the same trussmaker. I’m anxious to see how this one turns out.
Replies
Neat !
I would like to see what the finished structure looks like before it is sheathed.
The shot I liked best was #4. I have never seen the top chord change dimension in the middle of its slope. I like how the total truss depth changes to about 12"-16" at that same point. Another first for me.
carpenter in transition
East Lake? West Lake?
I'm trying to orient my self to the views!
Nice little shack. You must be chomping at the bit seeing this.
Keep posting, I love stuff like this. And we KNOW you're gonna post progress photo's of the house you'll be building.
Eric
I Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
The view is up the west channel, with the Pulpit Rock cliff on the right. The mountain stands straight out off the end, in their view.
Is that what you meant, in your east or west question? There is only one Lake Placid, but the lake has its two main long channels named thus.
Bingo.I Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
I wuz wrong. Pulpit rock is on the east channel. And that is what the view lines up with. No cliffs on the west side.
Imagine yourself in a float plane, setting up your landing approach to the east channel, bearing roughly NE. That's the view.
When the loons do their landing approaches (woo-woo-woo-woo-woo . . . ), and the float planes, they buzz right over this site, on their way down to the lake.
Today is Thursday. The framing crew had a crane there Monday and Tuesday, and then the whole bunch (5 guys) left early on Wednesday, and haven't been seen since.
If you go to the first post and look at the pics, taken on Sunday, then look at these, you can see that they are not getting much done.
The fact that they left early yesterday (very light sprinkles) and are not there today (no rain or snow) makes me think of the old Bob Dylan song, Ballad of a Thin Man:
" . . . something is happening, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones."
I'll bet there is a big problem with truss fabrication.
More pics to follow, as things progress.
Ah, yes. Trusses are thing of beauty, aren't they ???
(-:
News to all who may be tracking this thread.
Local authorities have commanded that the project be stopped! The lawyers are busy at work.
The Adirondack Park is America's largest public park. The perimeter, called the "blue line" is crossed a little north of Glens Falls, NY, a little ways up from Albany, and continuing north on I-87, you don't cross the northern border and leave the park until you are almost in Canada.
Since 1972, all land use and development within the park has been under the control of the Adirondack Park Agenca ("APA").
The APA has two important guidelines, as relating to siting and size. One restricts the height of structures, and another attempts to preserve "scenic vistas."
Under the height and scenic vista considerations, many projects have had to have their siting and designs changed, before permits are issued, so that the finished houses are hidden from view, for people either traveling on nearby roads, or hiking on mountain trails.
Basically, the folks at the APA wish that the whole park could revert back to the wild, with nothing man-made seen anywhere.
The subdivision where this house is being built was developed after an subdivision-wide APA permit was issued, and the permit document has as an addendum, the restrictive covenants submitted by the developers. That document defines a max structure height of 30 feet, as measured from lowest point of finished grade adjacent the structure, to the highest peak of roof, excluding any chimney structures.
The APA has a taller height restriction, which sets max heights at 40 feet. But it certainly obliges building jurisdictions within the park, if lower heights are set by codes, or in this case, by restrictive covenants for developments.
The original APA permit for the subdivision was issued about 25 years ago, and is still valid. Sometime around twelve years ago, the developers modified the covenants, changing the wording about height, in a move to attract more upscale buyers.
Upscale buyers want bigger, taller houses. They also want to build in an area where there aren't small houses (in square footage) allowed. They don't want to build their trophy weekend home, in the "great camp" style, if their neighbor is permitted to throw up a shack. So the developers published a new set of covenants specifying larger minimum square footages than originally, and moving the max height up to 35 feet from the former 30 feet.
They also doodled the language in the new height clause, eliminating the phrase, "as measured from lowest point of adjacent finished grade . . ." This allowed lots of wiggle room in height interpretation.
These new covenants, while working to the advantage of the developer in selling lots at increasingly higher prices, were never legally made a part of the APA permit.
This new home now under construction, shown in photos in the earlier posts in this thread, is certainly over the height limit as defined in the more narrow first set of covenants. It is likely even over the limit shown in the "unofficial" newer covenants, depending on interpretation.
In the last fifteen years, a dozen or more of the new homes built, exceed the height limit as defined in one or both of the covenant documents. How they got permitted for construction is an interesting story.
The local building authority, the office that issues building permits and does inspections and COs, is a one-man show, operating out of a small office on the top floor of the township hall.
Since the beginning of the current boom of vacation home building, starting in the early 90s, many very wealthy, influential, and politically powerful people have built new weekend homes on scenic lots here or on the beautiful lakes nearby.
The issue of building height has been attacked, prodded, and squeezed from all directions and angles. Big city lawyers and architects have come to bear on the poor local guy. A new interpretation of "height" has come into being.
It is real screwy, and I don't think it is written anywhere, but I'll try to describe it.
Your roof height isn't absolute, like the elevation of your tallest ridge. It is something like the "mean height," arrived at by going halfway from eave to ridge. The same thing, I think, has been applied to grade, from which we measure up to height, and get "building height."
So, with this interpretation, a house with a steeply pitched roof, built on a slope with a 10-foot ceiling walkout lower level, and two finished floors above, in fact almost 40 feet tall when measured from the walkout grade up to the tall ridge, gets "interpreted" as under 30 feet in height.
So, we have the APA with one way of determining height, and the town hall, issuing building permits, using another way.
Lots of houses get built that are tall, and that can be seen from the roadways in the valleys below. But sometimes someone objects and drops a dime, calls a lawyer, or worse, calls the APA.
I think that is what happened here.
I am certain it won't turn into a witch hunt, that is, other houses already built and lived in, in the subdivision, won't be affected.
I hope so, because mine, using the strictest way of measuring, is 37 feet tall when measured on the downhill walkout side. Others here, are taller than mine.
The cardinal sin this owner-builder has committed, IMHO, is that his place is on the best view lot in the whole subdivision, and he has sited the house, with tree cutting and grade enhancement (over 100 truckloads of fill), so that it is almost 100 percent visible, all three stories of the walkout downhill elevation, from the village below.
No other houses along the ridge are as tall, and all of these other houses have "view corridors" whacked through the trees, so that from down below, they remain somewhat hidden. Then, along comes the Taj Majal.
So, we'll see how things play out.
Edited 2/12/2005 1:21 pm ET by Gene Davis
Ouch,
Best of luck. Hope it's not too expensive to fix.
SamT
Glad that's not me. hope it doesn't cost you too much - cash that is, I know the aggravation it will cost.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I suppose I should give credit here where it's due.
Ain't my job. Terry's framing it. But I never said I was doing it.
Through our mutual lumber supplier, the owner has asked that I call him. I haven't as of yet. He is likely wanting to discuss my support of his project, as a fellow property-owner in the subdivision.
I really don't want to get involved. I've a permit app in at the building office for a pending start across the street, but mine is topping out at 5.3 feet under the 30 feet max. I just want to get my permit and get to work, and keep quiet.
In discussing my app and the stoppage across the road, with the attorney from the Agency that called the stop order, I asked how one might proceed to build one over this too-tight 30 foot max restriction. He told me that before building, one must file a request, that it would require a number of signatures from affected nearby property owners, and that there would be no certainty of permission being granted.
From what I'm hearing from others nearby, he'd never had gotten signatures aforehand. I didn't say this, someone else did, but it would't hurt him to lose a floor off that thing.