Small house showcases love for nature and art
FAIRFIELD, Iowa - The house is made of soil, timber, straw and rock that John Freeberg and Susan Walch gathered on their land and assembled over the last six years. It is powered by the sun and its water pumped from a pond.
Sitting atop a wave of meadow near Fairfield, the home is an expression of art from the landscape and connection to curious community members who often drive down a gravel country lane to see it.
“People come here and they don’t want to leave. They say it makes them feel good,” Walch said. “This is heaven. We never want to leave.”
Their 1,100 square-foot home is featured in the new book “Small Homes: The Right Size,” which showcases dwellings between 500 and 1,200 square feet.
Small homes haven’t become a trend like tiny homes, usually fewer than 400 square feet, which people love because they are easy to understand, said Lloyd Kahn, the book’s editor from Shelter Publications in Bolinas, Calif.
“But small homes suit people’s needs if they think about it,” he said. “It’s like Goldilocks. It’s not too big and not too small.”
The median square footage of new homes built in the U.S. has steadily climbed from 1,523 in 1973 to 2,422 in 2016, according to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau. But data also showed that people are thinking smaller when they build their own home. The percentage of homes under 1,400 square feet built by owners has increased to 25 percent, up from 15 percent in 1999. (Only 10 percent of contractor-built homes were that size in 2016).
Freeberg and Walch don’t shout from the meadow top about the value of building small and off-the-grid. Yet what they pulled together from around them was almost like advanced fort building for adults.
The walls are made of straw from the land, coated with its clay. The roof is earthen and grows sedum. Whole shagbark hickory trees were hauled from their nearby timber, debarked and used for a great room barrel vaulted ceiling. Scrap ends of limestone from Stone City make up the hearth and a wide path from the cozy front porch to the back screened-in porch. The rest of the floor is clay from their land, treated with oils.
Odds and ends appear throughout the home, from a kitchen breakfast bar made of a maple tree rescued from the Skunk River to old barn wood or wood posts from neighbors. A chicken coop is part of the bedroom décor.
“We’re dumpster divers. You wouldn’t believe what people throw away,” Walch said.
The partners of 12 years also didn’t lecture on green living during a recent visit, hesitating when asked about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement the day before.
“We don’t have TV, so I didn’t really follow it,” Freeberg said. “I just have my little piece of creation here.”
Freeberg, 67, and Walch, 61, may have built a model for battling climate change, but their love of art, nature and practicality fueled its design.
Both came to Fairfield to practice Transcendental Meditation, which attracts people from all over the world to this southeast Iowa community of 9,500, home to Maharishi School of Management. Freeberg came from Wisconsin in 1982 and Walch from Connecticut in the 1970s.
They both work on land contracts for the wind energy industry. In the years after they got together in 2005, they began looking for a spot to build a home.
They found the perfect land near Cedar Creek, 54 acres with timber stands, a hilltop meadow perfect for building. The surrounding fields hadn’t grown row crops in 15 years.
Their FarmHouse at Hickory Highlands started to take shape. They researched online and attended educational seminars on natural building. The construction started to form based on land around them.
The nearby pond only drains from four acres of protected land so they were confident they could use the water with a basic filter.
“You’re drinking it right now,” said Freeberg, pointing to the hibiscus tea he shared.