Joe Spaulding: Building Homes that Sustain Body and Soul

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

At the top of a green and wooded hill near the Bow Lakes area of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore lies the meticulously handcrafted homestead of builder, philosopher, musician and community activist Joe Spaulding and his equally dynamic wife, painter and classical musician Carol Spaulding. The approach to their home winds along a bridge-like boardwalk that takes a visitor past a thriving vegetable garden, outbuildings fancifully clad in shingles as playful as a flapper’s dress, and stained-glass lanterns that herald the festive atmosphere and occupants within.

The master craftsman is blessed with an abundance of energy, creative problem-solving skills, and a formidable work ethic, honed by years of laboring first for his designer-builder father, then running his own construction company, as well as constructing several homes with Carol and later, their four children Ethan, Holly, Autumn and Peter. Joe recalls going to work with his own dad even earlier as a child, “playing at the site all day, and pulling and straightening nails.”

After joining his construction crew at age 15, “We refurbished historical homes, modern styles, Japanese, remodeling — every aspect of building. When I wanted to build my own place, I asked, ‘How can we do this?’” on his and Carol’s limited financial resources.

“The ethic of recycling, reusing everything was born of necessity,” aided by know-how and determination.

“I’m the original dumpster diver!” he chortles. “Our first cabin was built from lumber scraps. We found an old shack and dragged it into the woods with a tractor. It was a temporary dwelling and didn’t cost anything; we were saving our money for our own Up North place, in Antrim County,” in the late 1970s.

There the Spauldings helped found an intentional community called Heartland. “We wanted to pattern our community like a little village: people had crafts in their homes, we had a school. With a durable lifestyle, your generation and successive generations can live in the same place sustainably.” Their own craft business, Peace Pole Makers USA, began after they’d seen an advertisement from a Vermont newspaper, offering the poles made in Japan — a concept born of World War II’s nuclear tragedies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

With the poles in short supply, the Vermont importers offered Joe and Carol their mailing list of 100 would-be customers. “We sold about 50 from that … we created the whole idea that Peace Poles could be an event, with the intention of trying to promulgate that message.” When the family moved to Leelanau County, they brought both their business and the intention to live harmoniously with them. (Eventually, they sold the Peace Pole business to another Leelanau couple, and the now-familiar white marker, emblazoned with the words, “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” in several languages, can be purchased from their facility on M-72 in Empire Township.)

Joe says, “About that time, people started asking me to design and build houses for them. They like that I’m on the job first thing in the morning, and there all day,” working. “I liked that I could be an artist and builder. I feel sorry for people who live for the weekend. I come home and build my own projects! I’m compulsive; I like what I do, and I’m an energy kind of guy.

“Not everyone can build the way I’ve built this.” He gestures around his home with its layered details, such as wainscot with triangular trim detail and beveled top rail, and handmade stained glass lighting fixtures. “I’ve got a lot of hours in this. On a job, you’ve got a budget.” Still, he works hard to ensure that the clients’ needs are met through design that works, as well as looks good, and he uses materials that enhance their quality of life for years to come.

“I have chemical sensitivity from my early years of working with toxic materials,” which were routine in the trades until quite recently (some still are, such as solvents in adhesives and plywood, formaldehyde in fiberglass insulation, and volatile organic chemicals in paints). “Not only do I not want my clients to live in a house that’s off-gassing toxins, I don’t want to work in one! We moved up here to get away from that.”

He struggles to maintain a healthy distance as well from the current market-driven “green” packaging that merely whitewashes bad construction practices and philosophies. It’s not enough, he argues, to use “renewable” materials like bamboo shipped from China, if you have local forests and mills available, or to certify “green-built” construction that tops out over 3,000 square feet — which needs to be heated, cooled, and maintained at greater expense in energy than, say, a 2,000-square-foot house that is mindfully crafted for future needs.

“My forte is designing, building, consulting [with] a ‘small is beautiful’ ethic,” Joe continues. “Put your money in the details, don’t just put it into the biggest box you can fit on your lot. I’d like to refocus on smaller, but with more care and quality. It’s a direction I’ve been going in for a really long time.”

In the current tough economy, Joe is bringing his multiple talents and experiences to clients as a consultant, as well as continuing the joyful pursuit of designing and building homes one at a time.

“I take on one project at a time and really immerse myself in it. I’ve been pretty lucky; I’ve had really great customers. People find out that you’re creative,” a quality that extends to making budget-friendly and Earth-friendly choices on the clients’ behalf.

For example, “We make our own trim; we always have,” he points out. “It’s not fancy — I like it simple — the added dimension of making it onsite is fun, and it’s more cost-effective to buy square lumber and tool it with a few site-made moldings.

“No OSB [oriented strand board], no adhesives,” and no dumpsters full of wasted lumber cutoffs. “The whole ethic on my jobsite is, don’t throw away anything. Architects will design something, but they’re not thinking about the waste.

“When I built my first house, we had no electricity — I built the whole thing with a handsaw. You develop a skill. I know how to do all kinds of weird stuff that no one else does, because I put myself in the position of having to learn.”

He points upward to the exposed 6×6 floor joists of burnished, golden-hued poplar, marching rhythmically along the ceiling above his living room. Poplar isn’t known in the building business as a structural member, but Joe made it work after harvesting so many of the trees from their property when clearing the site.

“It’s springy and flexes some, but it works,” when spaced more closely than the typical 24-inch on-center joist construction. “We knew we would be in this house for quite a while, and we wanted it to be a great work,” he says, offering a simple yet so complex explanation for all the beautiful textures, colors, shapes and comfortable features of the Spaulding family home, created almost entirely with more than 20,000 board feet of lumber they felled, milled, and hammered into place themselves.

“After more than 45 years in the business, I’ve had my hands on every single aspect of construction,” he says, “and been a laborer all the way. I’m a general contractor, but I’m more of a builder than a conventional builder. I know what to do. As a designer, I have a photographic memory, so everything I’ve looked at, I have access to, and a huge library,” of resources and ideas.

Major influences include Japanese houses from the turn of the last century, “where natural materials were used as found: if a tree header was crooked, they’d use it somewhere. The building module size was the tatami mat [a floor covering made of natural fibers]. A room would be a three-mat or four-mat room, and so forth.”

Other structural and aesthetic inspiration comes from American colonial building, like the early farmhouses. “They’re elegant and yet efficient, really simple, not too big,” he enthuses. Techniques such as window and door casing that uses butt (square) joinery allowed for seasonal movement in the wood, and was later adopted by the 19th century’s Arts and Crafts movement, which Joe also loves.

What trends would he like to recapture from earlier eras? “I’d like to bring the entryway back and make that the focal point, not the garage. I’m really opposed to attached garages with their pollution, the hot engines off-gassing oils and stuff at 450 degrees even after the car is off. You’re not going to buck a trend like that, though,” he sighs. “But if you can get a sense of an entry — make them a little welcoming, it sets the mood for you or anyone visiting.”

He also cites the work of Earl Young, Charlevoix’s well-known builder of the “Boulder Park” stone houses, as a pivotal influence. “I worked on some of his houses,” in the 1970s. “I discovered him after we built our first home. Earl was about 5’3”, so he made all his doors six feet high. But he somehow didn’t manage to make a door for his own house! He was the original hippie builder,” he laughs, savoring the memory.

“On a job redoing a barn into living quarters, I got to build 20 doors onsite. There’s some pleasure to be had there — that’s the bottom line. Why give that pleasure away? Why not put your soul into everything in your house?”

Joe Spaulding can be reached at (231) 334-3377.