A Palm Beach couple's mountain sanctuary — hand-hewn timber, pickled white, mirrored on a headwater lake.
Steve and Julie had built a life in West Palm Beach, but Julie had been walking the trails around Highlands since she was six years old. When they finally chose a summer escape, it was a lake at the headwaters of a mountain river — and the house that would rise there had to hold three generations, without ever feeling like it was trying.
Project
Jackson Family Home — Bear's Lair
Location
Highlands, North Carolina
Discipline
Timber Frame Home
Details
Hand-hewn timber frame · Lakeside compound · Great room · Gazebo
Their builder, Dave Parmelee of Scaly Mountain Builders, was a repeat Hearthstone client. He suggested the Jacksons look at our portfolio. Impressed by the breadth of hand-crafted work and Dave's history with our crews, they chose a Hearthstone timber frame.
Julie runs her own design firm in Palm Beach. Working with Chris Wood, our VP of Sales and a superior designer in his own right, and with Dave on the ground, the three of them shaped the distinctive elements of the house. Massive hammer-beam trusses literally frame the lake view. Walls of glass step down toward the water. A small hand-hewn cabin section reads as though the entire house grew up around a 200-year-old original.
Two details make this frame unlike any other Hearthstone build: every timber is hand-hewn, and the whole frame carries a pickled-whitewash finish — mountain-rustic and mountain-luxury held in the same room. Steve's open kitchen sits directly on the great room so he can cook and hold the conversation at once. A gazebo at the water's edge is the family's favorite room in the house.
The Jacksons now spend more of the year here than in Florida. The sunsets, they've decided, have started to win.
"Sunsets from the lakeside timber frame gazebo are beginning to have more appeal than the hurricanes, the heat, and the hectic life."
— The Jackson family, Bear's Lair
