Making History

What’s old is new again in one Tennessee hybrid home.

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When most set out to build a custom home, they say they want something that’s one of-a-kind. In the case of Rick Peterson and his log cabin-meets-timber home in southern Tennessee, checking that goal off the list came as soon as he picked out the materials he would build with. “I wanted something unusual,” says Rick, “so when my friend in the woodworking business told me he’d found a more than 200-year-old log cabin that we could dismantle, I couldn’t pass it up.”

From there, Rick and his builder let the logs do the talking, and set out to design a new house that could be built with the pieces of the old cabin. This journey took them to Knoxville, Tennessee, to StoneMill Log & Timber Homes, where they found the company’s Kelly Plantation plan, modified the drawings to suit Rick’s vision for the home and started the two-year process of building a home that perfectly pairs old construction materials with new technique and a new timber frame. “We built this house like Johnny Cash built his Cadillac,” says Rick. “You know, one piece at a time.”