Discover the unique features inside this storybook style house!

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Discover 661 FM Drive

Is it the Heart House?

There are at least 9 hearts built into the buildings. Or is it the bird house? There are 4 bird corbels, a bird knocker, key holder, and others. Maybe it’s the house with the slate roof. Or the house built around the tree. Call it whatever you like! The house will be getting a name soon, and a nameplate to designate that, similar to storybook style houses in Carmel by the Sea. Top name choices so far are “Key to my Heart” and “Heart’s Whimsy”.

About 661 FM Drive

Background of the Build

Goals for building this house included:

The cost to build, including land, labor, materials, and all costs, should be less than the price of a new pick-up truck. Does that sound crazy? Consider that upon breaking ground, a top of the line pick-up cost as much as $150,000. A few years prior, the lumber package would have been about $15,000 for this project. Due to the price shocks during COVID, the lumber package was over $100,000, thereby completely obliterating this goal!
The project should employ the methodology of the construction of storybook style homes built in Carmel by the Sea in the 1920s. This includes reusing materials left over from other projects, finding new uses for materials, making changes that lower cost but not quality, and being flexible to changes as needed. I think you will agree that we succeeded with this goal.
The build should include homages to artists. Success! There are tributes to several artists.

Trees:

There was a bull pine tree near where the chimney now stands. The tree had been dead for some time, the victim of a fire. It was cut down and brought to a mill in Arnold, where it was sliced into various thicknesses. The cut wood was stacked to dry in the garage of the house across the street that I rented before and during the first part of the construction.
Today, you can see that tree on the front of the garage and ADU in the live-edge trim. It is also used in several locations in the house, especially in the guest bedroom. Why throw away a tree and then go buy wood at the lumberyard?! Using what is available is one of the precepts of Storybook homes.

There was a large Ponderosa pine tree in the very center of the lot. “Cut it down!” was the common cry. While I understand that there are a million more trees nearby, I didn’t want to cut down a 114 foot, 100+ year old tree. Rather, I wanted to make it a feature of the new house. This made the house design much more challenging!
Rarely would one build a detached garage. No one wants to bring groceries in through the rain, or walk outside at night. Because of the tree in the middle, there was no other option. As it is, the structures touch the set-back lines on all 4 sides of the lot!
Now, the tree is in a courtyard between the garage and house. It can be several degrees cooler on the deck in the summertime than elsewhere on the property, thanks to the tree. There is a fly in the ointment, though, or rather, a squirrel! It seems that a particular squirrel enjoys munching on the pine cones in the tree and tossing the remnants at unsuspecting humans below!
Great pains were taken to protect the tree during construction. An arborist consulted on the site. The foundation was not dug in the normal fashion; it was dug with a hydro-vac, which is a giant truck that injects water under high pressure into the ground, thus breaking up the soil, and a giant vacuum that immediately sucks up the muck. Any exposed roots were bridged with steel so that concrete would not hurt them, and to give the roots room to grow. Now the tree has irrigation to it to make up for the loss of natural water that isn’t able to get underneath the concrete slab of the garage.

Materials and Features

The chimney evolved! The plan elevations (drawings by the draftsman of what the house will look like) showed a chimney that tapered as it rose. The structural plans designed by the engineer dictated a monolithic structure. With this type of disparity, the builder has to follow the structural plan. Once the chimney was framed, it was obvious that it didn’t fit the house, so the chimney was pared down on the upper part of one side. This was a big improvement, but it was still not as good as it could be. What could improve the chimney? Hearts!
It has been asked why there are 5 hearts. Is it for the mother, father, and 3 children? No! It’s just what fit! Sometimes there is a meaning, sometimes not!

A story about the balcony railing on the rear of the house: It was getting to be time for a railing, so I went to the ornamental iron store in Stockton. There was a welding shop next door. I bought the materials at 10am. The welder completely fabricated the balcony by 3pm! I brought it home, painted it several colors, and installed it by 1pm the next day! 27 hours from idea to installation! If only everything were so quick and easy!

Materials for this house were picked up all over California. Other items were shipped. The hinges for the front door were made by a blacksmith in Idaho. Hinges for the interior doors were made in Kiev in the midst of war. The large stained glass window came from a church in Ohio. Many items were made specifically for this property.

The property has tributes to several artists. The flower shaped flower bed in the front yard is a nod to Frida Kahlo. Dali gets a tip of the hat with the melting stairway. Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and others are represented.

The house plans originally called for the roof to be covered in an artificial thatch. (Real thatch is not fire-rated, and thus not allowed.) When it came time to order the thatch, it was discovered that the manufacturer had made mistakes in both measuring and pricing, raising the cost from a steep eighteen thousand-ish dollars to well over fifty thousand dollars for materials alone! Worse, the delivery time was delayed by 90 days. Time for plan B!
Thatch is very uncommon in America. So is slate, and it will last 5 times longer!
Slate, being stone, doesn’t wear out quickly! Some of the slate on the roof was first on the roof of a house on the San Francisco Peninsula. That house had had a kitchen fire that damaged part of the roof. To perfectly match the fire damaged area, the roofer opted to put on an entirely new slate roof. So the existing undamaged tiles were carefully removed, packed, and shipped to Murphys, where they were blended with new slate tiles.

If you look at the outside of the house, you will see wood accents breaking up the stucco. These pieces are painted in a dark brown color. Collectively the pieces are called “half-timbering” or “caming”. This is common on Tudor style houses and similar styles of construction. Modern structures can have this effect, but are usually very straight, due to more precise cutting tools.
Ages ago, half-timbering was a structural element, but for quite some time it has been strictly decorative. The wavy half-timbering adds charm. In California, the half-timbering has become a bit of a problem, because it’s flammable! To solve that problem, the half-timbering on this house is actually a fire-proof rigid foam, coated with a synthetic stucco and then painted. The shape of the pieces was made by tracing actual wood pieces from the tree that had been taken down on the property onto the foam.

Because the house is in a forest, extra steps were taken to fireproof it. A stone roof, stucco walls, special vents that melt when too hot and thereby shut off oxygen to the crawl space, and fireproof decking were employed.

Possibly Interesting Factoids:

Chocolate swirl is the name of the color of paint on the exterior trim. How can you go wrong with a name like that?!
The house is off-grid from power. All electric is provided by solar panels and batteries. In the future there will be a propane powered back up generator, and possibly propane powered appliances. Now, it is an all electric house.
There are 4332 flower bulbs in the flower shaped flower bed. Not all of them came up! They are designed to come up in stages, such that there are flowers for all four seasons.
There are 10,000 copper nails, all put in with a hammer, holding on the slate roof.
I stopped counting how many gun nails went into the house when it topped 50,000.
The water heater is a heat pump hybrid that can heat the tank with the power it takes to light a 40 watt lightbulb!
The fireplace has a catalytic converter for extra clean burning!
OMG! How many trips to the dump does it take to build a house! Many more than you might think!

The ADU

There is an ADU above the garage. “ADU”, the new buzzword for what used to be called a granny flat, stands for “Accessory Dwelling Unit”. The ADU was supposed to house an elderly family member, but that is no longer possible.

The ADU actually serves another purpose. It supports the solar panels that provide the only power to the property. If the ADU was not there, the solar panels would be on a roof to the garage, where they would be blocked by trees. The solar panels, therefore, dictated the slope of the roof (the ideal amount to capture the most amount of sun).

The house and garage/ADU are similar, but not exactly a match. Why? For starters, the roof pitches needed to be very different. The ADU roof needed to be a bit flatter to avoid contact with the tree, and to accommodate the solar panels. The house roof needed to be steep to accommodate the loft. The two building were made to fit together, but not be twins, much like you would see in a European village.

Future Plans

The house will be submitted for publication to several magazines and television shows. Because publishers are less inclined to undertake this task if photos of the property have already gone viral, we must be very protective of the images. You are welcome to see the property, but may not record it in any way.
It is possible that we will make YouTube videos, and if so, those videos would, of course, be available to everyone.
It has been suggested that the property will be for sale soon. This is not true. I expect to own the property until my death.
The property will be available for very short term stays by friends and family for free, but will never be for rent.

Tour Information

Please remember that this is a private residence, and the owners have the right to restrict access to anyone for any reason.
Unfortunately, the buildings are not accessible to wheelchairs and strollers are not permitted.
No pets, including service animals, are permitted.
Please do not bring house warming gifts. While we appreciate your kindness, we have everything we need, and are not able to properly thank you with all of the activity going on.
You can live without water or other libations for the duration of the half-hour tour!
Absolutely no photos or videos are allowed. The mere appearance of a cell phone will end your tour immediately. Please see above for the reason for this.
There are no plans to ever again have tours of the house. It could happen for a charity, or special event, but not in the foreseeable future. In order to interact with guests, and because it is a small house, the tours will be limited to 4 guests at a time.
Please be on time for your tour. In order to fit in 150 guests, the tours must start and end on time. There are no make-up tours!
We implore you not to talk to others about your tour until they have had the opportunity to see the charms of this house so as not to ruin their joy of discovery.
IMPORTANT!! Please note that when booking your tour here on our website, each person must book individually. Each time slot is only available for 4 people and when you select your time slot, you won't be able to see how many people have already booked that same time slot. So, for example, if three people have already booked a certain time slot, you will only be able to book that time for one more person. Once a time slot is booked for 4 people, the time slot button disappears. You may need to reschedule to keep your party together. We apologize for the clunkiness of this feature, but we're not web designers, we're builders! We did the best we could. If you have trouble booking, please call us and we'll be happy to help you: Barry (209) 915-2526.