THIS NEW HOUSE
Money Magazine, June 1999
By Daniel Akst
Many things can jeopardize a home-building project, but never did I expect ours to be cast in peril by the words I heard on a sunny Monday in November.
It was the day of my father's funeral, which was bad enough, and it began inauspiciously, with both my infant sons throwing up in the car on the way to the train. Somehow I got to the memorial service in New Jersey on time and then raced back into Manhattan to meet my wife at the doctor's office. There, as the boys crawled all over their mother, we learned that she had breast cancer.
The ensuing week or so was the worst of our lives. We knew the lump was malignant, but until it was removed surgically, we couldn't know how far things had gone. We didn't talk about our worst fears because they were just too awful, but we did talk about the new house we were building. I suggested that we might want to halt work. But Louise was adamant. She wanted life to go on, in every sense of those words. "I'm not going to die," she said. "And I really want to build this house."
That was okay for now, but I didn't say what I really thought, which was that if the medical news was bad, we would stop the project. How could we do otherwise? Advanced treatments might be required, treatments not available in New York's rural Hudson Valley. And if things got really serious, we would probably want to move back to Los Angeles, where Louise could be close to family and friends. (We had just left there in August.) We might also need to conserve cash, which our new house would soon begin to consume at a terrifying rate.
It was not a bad time to stop because so far our new house was mainly an expensive hole in the ground. Our goal, you may recall from Part 1 of this series, was to see if we could build a distinctive modern house with a well-known architect for something like the price of a standard middle-class home. [Part 1 ran in January. Back issues can be ordered at 800-633-9970, and the article can be accessed by title on the Web at www.money.com /archive.] But we were already expecting construction to cost way more than the $175,000 we'd initially hoped. Endless frustrating delays had prevented more work from happening so far, and we watched in resignation as one glorious fall day after another slipped by with no activity at all.
It seemed to take forever for the architects to get "final" plans to us. To avoid losing the excavator and mason for additional weeks, we poured the base of the foundation according to a rough outline that the builders had got the lead architect to sign and return by fax. Thus we had a slab we hoped would fit a house we weren't sure we should build. We didn't even have a bank loan. Getting one required a signed contract with the builders, who were reluctant to make a final agreement without final plans and specifications from the architects, who had in turn been held up by the time it had taken the builders to price changes, who for their part cited...well, you get the picture.
In light of Louise's cancer, part of me wanted to stop the project. For a while, in fact, I had been suppressing the urge to do something dramatic to jolt the builders and the architects into a sense of urgency, but that probably would have made things worse, so I stewed in silence. Finally, the day of the surgery arrived. When the doctor emerged from the operating room, I greeted him in a haze of sleeplessness and fear. But Louise's regular monthly self-examinations had paid off: She had detected the tumor before it could spread. A lumpectomy had been sufficient, and while there would have to be other treatments, these wouldn't be too onerous. The prognosis was immensely favorable.
Just hours after the operation, we tested normal life again. We met a friend, took a walk, went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. On the long drive home to the place we were renting, we even started talking optimistically about the house. The delays didn't seem so bad all of a sudden, now that we knew the world wasn't about to end. It was looking as if we'd build it after all--not just as a place to live but as a sign of faith in the future we were determined to share.
And sure enough, the place started going up. It happened all of a sudden, really. Once the foundation was in, lots of things could be done even without the final plans. And before long those plans--still not really final--turned up, and building began in earnest. I developed the habit of stopping by the site on the way to my office. Louise and the boys often came by later in the day. These visits were useful for everyone; I learned how to tell when the builders were too busy to chat, and they got a chance to ask us what we intended here or there and to tell us when they were about to extemporize because of a gray area in the blueprints.
Even more shocking than the progress was the cost. Rather than insisting on a fixed-price contract, we'd made the unorthodox decision to build the house on a time-and-materials basis; the idea was to eliminate the need for the contractors--and all the subcontractors right down the line--to build in a fat risk premium as a cushion against an unexpectedly costly or time-consuming job.
What shocked us was that our plan was working. Not only were we saving that risk premium, but the actual costs were coming in at or even below budget. The driveway, masonry, windows and other expenses came in below the estimates, and even the municipal fees for water and sewage connections were lower than anticipated. We began to speculate that ours might be the first project since the pyramids to surprise by costing less than expected. Early indications were not only that our architects had come up with a terrific design, but that the final tab would be close to the number we had asked them to shoot for.
But our builders were the main reason costs stayed under control. Tate Construction--Reynolds Tate and John Harrison Jr.--comparison shopped for every last nail, it sometimes seemed, even though it cost them when they saved money for me. As general contractors they were entitled to a 20% markup on everything, so finding a better price on something meant a lower markup for them. I went so far as to ask about this. I had already agreed to their estimated price for the house, after all. If they built the place for the $250,000 we had come to figure on, I'd probably be happy. So what motivated them to knock themselves out and pass the savings back to us? John shrugged: "We're just doing our job."
Another factor, I think, is that they were happy. Ours was an interesting house, and from the outset we made it clear we wanted their minds as well as their bodies. We solicited their views and took their judgment seriously. Also, building a house for a fixed price is stressful, and we had relieved them of that burden, for which they were manifestly grateful. And we were true to our promise never to ask them to cut corners. "Build it as if your own family were going to live in it," I told Tate when we first met. As far as I could tell, he was doing just that.
Early in the process, it is worrisome that your new house isn't getting built. Then, when things start to happen, it's just as worrisome that it is getting built. Decisions become irrevocable, and the choices multiply. I had assumed that, with an architect and a general contractor, many of these choices would be made for us, but there seems to be no alternative to owner involvement.
To cite one example, the original design called for a double-sided, wood-burning fireplace. Masonry was too expensive, so we opted for a prefabricated firebox. But dealers told me that a two-sided unit can be smoky and temperamental, and even when working properly it sends all the heat up the chimney (along with air pollution). I found a two-sided propane fireplace, but cruising the Web I discovered a nearly identical model by the same company. Which to choose? The local dealer was no help, but at the company's headquarters in Minnesota, a technician patiently explained that the two models differ in how they are vented. In our part of the country we would want the "direct vent" version to keep out drafts and burn more efficiently. The windows were a similar story. Our own research uncovered an energy-efficient line by Marvin that would look good on our house but cost a lot less than standard Marvin windows because the exterior frames are made of a high-tech plastic that can even be painted.
To keep to our budget, Louise and I found ourselves prowling through Home Depot and Lowe's and staying up long after the kids were in bed to weigh faucet options and the like. Some of this was fun. For the kids' bath, we saved a bundle by using $35 stainless-steel bar sinks, which have a nice industrial look and can probably withstand the sort of abuse our twins will mete out. (Name-brand stainless-steel bathroom sinks cost several times as much.) We also learned that one-piece plastic tub and shower surrounds are easier to keep clean and safer than cast iron. Disguised by some overpriced shower curtain, they'll look fine.
At the same time you're worrying about all the little stuff, the big stuff is going on as well. The early stages of construction can be disconcerting. In our case, the entire building at first looked much too small, then weirdly misshapen. You quickly discover in building a new house that all the excavation radically changes the way everything looks at the site. For a few days I was convinced the builders had made a mistake and erected the foundation in the wrong place, until Harrison demonstrated with a smile that it was right where it was supposed to be. I shook my head in wonder. Looking around at our site, I barely recognized the place.
With construction going full bore, the project also started to burn money. This was okay, except we still didn't have our bank loan. I finally prevailed on the builders to sign a version of the standard agreement provided by the architects, with a good many changes. Some more time went by and still no loan. Then the bank called. The loan officers needed a fixed price in the contract somewhere, and they didn't see one. "Look at the top of page three," I said. "Oh," said the woman at the bank. "We missed that." They would get back to me.
Soon enough, a trench was dug for the electricity and phone lines (provision had been made for many of the latter). With power in place, more power tools could be used, and with saws set up, the builders soon installed the platform of joists and plywood that would hold up the rest of the house. Soon after, the skeleton of the structure started going up.
Meanwhile, the weather was deteriorating. I'm an old hand at winter, but only as a renter; my entire home-ownership experience is embodied in the 1920 bungalow we recently sold in Southern California. Our part of New York State has a considerably harsher climate, and as fall turned into winter I gained new respect for the builders' obsession with making things ironclad and watertight. Thus the foundation was coated with waterproofing material, and then the waterproofing was coated with Styrofoam to protect it from the earth.
Finally, in the new year, the weather got so bad that work had to stop. We had snow, freezing rains, melting and then more freezing. The long, steep driveway of our rental house appeared to be navigable only by luge.
"See, this is the weather that worries me most about your house," Ren Tate said one day as he helped me dig my car out of the snow. He meant the unusual roofline, which funnels everything toward the center and from there, presumably, out to the ends of the house, where it's supposed to drain. He got me worried too. The fear is that standing water will build up behind dams of ice and then leak into even the slightest opening. "Whatever you do, don't design us a house that leaks," I had warned the architects at the outset. They had joked about Frank Lloyd Wright, some of whose houses are plagued by such problems. "I would have fired Wright," I said.
Ren and I discussed the possibility of some hot-water pipes to melt stuff off the roof, an addition likely to cost somewhere in the low four figures. He felt we should wait and see what happened. Now, trying to shovel a recalcitrant old Saab out of deep snow, I began to share the builders' worries about the roof. But once I got the car out, I decided to stop worrying. I remembered the assurances of our architect, Walter Chatham. "It won't leak," he had said again and again, and he'd been right about almost everything so far. We'd assume for now he was right about this too.
Eventually, the weather improved. The builders said a January thaw was typical for this part of the country, and they were able to make hay at the job site. Soon after Louise and I returned from a visit to Los Angeles, we approached the site in astonishment. There they were--the bones of the place where we'd live. The builders had managed to get the thing completely framed and covered with plywood. Now that the propane tank was in place, the crew could use portable heaters and ignore the weather while working indoors.
We climbed inside the lumber shell and shivered in its dripping innards. It felt like a damp cave that would never dry out or some weird catamaran raised from the depths and still surprisingly seaworthy. It was all pretty hard to believe. From the inside it now seemed vast, and from the outside it had begun to take on an ungainly beauty. The rafter tails, cut one at a time and meticulously sanded, thrust majestically out from beneath the roof, and when the dirt was filled in around the foundation, the building seemed to settle into itself and show off its proportions with grace. It feels good to see your efforts and persistence taking shape right before your eyes, especially after circumstances had briefly seemed so tragic. Maybe we weren't crazy. Maybe we wouldn't go mad or broke or get divorced. Maybe we'd even get to live in the place.
PHOTO (COLOR): Early on, Daniel Akst and Louise Dewhirst had to consider abandoning their dream house.
PHOTO (COLOR): With their twin boys in mind, Akst and Dewhirst opted for durability whenever possible.
PHOTO (COLOR): "It won't leak," the architect had promised again and again.
PHOTO (COLOR): All of a sudden "there they were--the bones of the place where we'd live."
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By Daniel Akst
=Daniel Akst is the author of St. Burl's Obituary, a novel. He writes a monthly Culture of Money column for the New York Times, and his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other publications.