Snake Creek Building Project

Last Updated: Feb 4, 2003

Oklahoma Building Project

To fit on our lot, the house needed to be reversed as it is shown in the above photo. We ordered the vellum set of plans which allow you to make changes as needed. We spent hours reversing them. (The company actually offers a reversed set, but then all the writing and numbers on the plans are reversed as well.) After modifying them in the reversed form, we presented the idea to several local builders. We had decided to use Judd Knowles as the builder on the project.

An interesting note is that I enjoy watching the home building and workshop type shows on Saturday mornings. One show of particular interest in Hometime on Learning Channel. After watching them building a house for about 3 weeks, it became obvious they were building THIS SAME HOUSE! An omen. Now we had no choice other than this house.

The major modifications include a bedroom on the first floor which was not in the original plans, but is needed here for my mother to live in since she really doesn't like climbing stairs.( I figure I probably won't like it either as I get older.) And we dropped the garage from the original plan. Since I will have an oversized hangar in the back yard, that will house not only the airplane, but the cars as well.

Some pictures of the lot and surrounding area are shown below:

My neighbor Marc Bowman was nice enough to let me use his hangar to store the Baron when we come up to check on the project. Sure enough, when we go to close on the loan, the snow starts to fall which makes a scenic view of the bridge over the pond on the northeast side of the runway. The next two photos after the bridge are taken from just about the same spot on the northeast side of the property. It is amazing what a week of nice weather will do.

The runway is numbered 03 and 21. The runway length is 2700' with a 700' overrun. Runway width is 50' and the overrun is 35'.

The outside of Tom's house is now finished and he is working on finishing the inside which is using very impressive and massive exposed beams.

That brings us up to date so far. Now we will start building. All the details that go into the process will not be listed here, but week by week, I will try to go through the major steps we encounter in the process. Week 1 will start with closing on the construction loan. This seems to be a logical place to start in that over a year has gone by since we initially bought the plans and we need to start somewhere. A normal construction loan runs for 9 months. After that, the bank requires you to either convert the loan to a mortgage (which means the house has to be finished and ready to move in), or extend the loan for another 3 to 6 months to finish the project. Our goal is to try and finish the project in the scheduled 9 months, but I don't want to rush the builder and am allowing a little extra time for the whole thing to be finished. That way if we run into delays ( and I am assured there will be plenty), it will not be that big of a deal. If we finish on time, so much the better

	Last Updated: Feb 4, 2003
	New Journal Entries - Jan. 27-31, 2003 & Feb. 1-7, 2003 Photos Section Updated

Oklahoma Building Project
This is an attempt to chronicle the adventures of building in Oklahoma on a newly developed fly-in community called Snake Creek. Snake Creek Wilderness is located on Lake Tenkiller in the Northeastern part of Oklahoma. My Mother, Dorothy lives there now in a development called Paradise Hill on the western shoreline of the lake. Our plan is to build a new house on the Snake Creek Property, move her in with us and for me to continue working in Houston. The commute will be accomplished by flying my Beechcraft Baron from Snake Creek to Tulsa (about a 15 minute flight) and catch a Continental flight to Houston which takes about 1hour and 15 minutes, or when the passenger loads are heavy to fly the Baron to Houston (about 1 hour and 45 minutes). The building process started with Jan and I looking through dozens of magazines for house plans that we thought might work. After weeks of searching, we both decided on a house plan from an issue of Better Homes and Gardens below.

To fit on our lot, the house needed to be reversed as it is shown in the above photo. We ordered the vellum set of plans which allow you to make changes as needed. We spent hours reversing them. (The company actually offers a reversed set, but then all the writing and numbers on the plans are reversed as well.) After modifying them in the reversed form, we presented the idea to several local builders. We had decided to use Judd Knowles as the builder on the project. An interesting note is that I enjoy watching the home building and workshop type shows on Saturday mornings. One show of particular interest in Hometime on Learning Channel. After watching them building a house for about 3 weeks, it became obvious they were building THIS SAME HOUSE! An omen. Now we had no choice other than this house. The major modifications include a bedroom on the first floor which was not in the original plans, but is needed here for my mother to live in since she really doesn't like climbing stairs.( I figure I probably won't like it either as I get older.) And we dropped the garage from the original plan. Since I will have an oversized hangar in the back yard, that will house not only the airplane, but the cars as well. Some pictures of the lot and surrounding area are shown below:


My neighbor Marc Bowman was nice enough to let me use his hangar to store the Baron when we come up to check on the project. Sure enough, when we go to close on the loan, the snow starts to fall which makes a scenic view of the bridge over the pond on the northeast side of the runway. The next two photos after the bridge are taken from just about the same spot on the northeast side of the property. It is amazing what a week of nice weather will do. The runway is numbered 03 and 21. The runway length is 2700' with a 700' overrun. Runway width is 50' and the overrun is 35'.


While looking at house plans, we ran across a company called Linwood Homes. It turns out that they sell the house shell in kit form. I spent a lot of time talking to Carl Hall at Linwood. A great guy that does a wonderful job. He helped me locate someone that was building the house I was interested in. Tom and Karen Wilhelmsen are building in a ski resort located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Tom and his wife have been gracious enough to let Jan and I come up several times to visit the construction site so we could see not only Linwood's lumber, but get a feel for the size of the house as well. Below are some pictures of Tom's house:

The outside of Tom's house is now finished and he is working on finishing the inside which is using very impressive and massive exposed beams. That brings us up to date so far. Now we will start building. All the details that go into the process will not be listed here, but week by week, I will try to go through the major steps we encounter in the process. Week 1 will start with closing on the construction loan. This seems to be a logical place to start in that over a year has gone by since we initially bought the plans and we need to start somewhere. A normal construction loan runs for 9 months. After that, the bank requires you to either convert the loan to a mortgage (which means the house has to be finished and ready to move in), or extend the loan for another 3 to 6 months to finish the project. Our goal is to try and finish the project in the scheduled 9 months, but I don't want to rush the builder and am allowing a little extra time for the whole thing to be finished. That way if we run into delays ( and I am assured there will be plenty), it will not be that big of a deal. If we finish on time, so much the better
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