“I don’t know quite how to put it,” reflects Joy Clayton, her southern voice smooth, mellow, rich … like molasses. “The simple truth is that wherever we are, when Ken and I are away, we just can’t wait to get back to our cabin. No place has ever felt so much like home, so right for us.” That single observation speaks volumes. Joy’s husband, Kenneth Clayton, is a Baptist minister; as such he and Joy have relocated and lived in many homes during their 48 years of marriage, including three years of ministry abroad, in Spain. Upon recently retiring from nearly 25 years of service as senior pastor of a church in Nashville, Ken and Joy reaped blessings seldom heard of when he took a position as pastor of Pine Eden Baptist Church in Crossville, Tennessee.
“Dr. and Mrs. Cranston Moses are longtime friends of ours,” explains Ken. “They own a large farm in The Homesteads (a historic community south of Crossville) and generously gifted Joy and me a parcel of their land to build a home on when we came to Crossville.” The historic significance of The Homestead dates back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential era when, during the Depression, tracts of land were granted to citizens deemed to be deserving of a “boost up” in their lives.
“It’s about a half acre lot,” continues Joy, “but we are completely surrounded by sweeping views of rolling farmland belonging to Dr. and Mrs. Moses. Two of their daughters and one of their grandsons also have homes on the farm. Our children and grandkids reside in Nashville, not too terribly far away, and here in Crossville we are embraced by an extended family. It’s wonderful.”
With an ideal home site to build on, Ken had arrived at an opportunity he had always dreamed of: to build and reside in a log cabin. Born and raised in the mountains of eastern Tennessee, in a town not far from where he and Joy are now living, Ken was smitten with the traditional log cabins dotting the countryside of his childhood. Temporarily living in a log home on the Moses farm that had been built by Honest Abe Log Homes in 1999, the Claytons admired the craftsmanship and lasting quality of the home and determined that Honest Abe was the right choice for their own log cabin. The couple visited Sharron Bilbrey, an Honest Abe representative based in Crossville, and presented her with Ken’s sketches of a cabin style that they felt would suit them perfectly.
“I had this design in my head and heart, based on so many of the old log homesteads I had seen growing up in East Tennessee,” says Ken. Coincidentally (or not) the sketches that Ken brought to Sharron were nearly identical to the very first Honest Abe model designed by the company’s then president, Rick Denton. “It was the same style of our first model home, called the Shenandoah,” says Sharron, “a cabin design that was inspired by the 1820s John Oliver Cabin in the pioneer settlement at Cade’s Cove, Tennessee. Rick Denton was impressed with the practical design and structural stability of the traditional mountain pioneer-style cabins, just as Ken had been.”
“Sharron knew exactly what to do to refine our sketches,” says Joy. “She drew the design on the computer and helped us to formulate a final floorplan.” To that end, a series of give-and-takes occurred, peacefully and diplomatically.
Ken wanted traditional looking log work with chinking inside and out; his initial preference was for a three-inch chink line. Joy didn’t want the wide chinking on the interior walls. A deal was struck: Honest Abe’s Genesis 6×12 log style with a v-groove allowed for a sleek 1-inch interior chink line, a good compromise.
Joy wanted to stain the interior log walls a deep cherry color. Sharron pointed out that the knots in the logs lend each of them a unique character, which would be diminished by a dark stain, so Joy conceded to a clear, natural finish on the wood.
Sharron strongly advised placing a window above the kitchen sink, but Joy stubbornly insisted she would not have one positioned there. “I just didn’t want a window over my kitchen sink!” exclaims Joy. “I like it just the way it is. Kitchen windows tend to get dirty quickly. And I didn’t want to break up the horizontal line of the logs. They’re my beautiful, handcrafted backsplash, a gorgeous view in and of themselves.”
And so the fine-tuning of the design process went, until all of the details were agreed upon. Ken and Joy had prior building experience with two conventional homes in the Nashville area, certainly helpful in the construction of their Crossville cabin. Even so, the Claytons’ project broke ground in March 2011 and, impressively, was completed four months later, in July. “It didn’t hurt that I was living right next door,” Ken points out. “And that I was eagerly willing to pitch in and help with the manual labor!” But he and Joy insist that it was the efforts of Sharron Bilbrey that made the project flow so smoothly for them. “She had her hand in every phase of the construction,” Joy declares.
To erect and dry-in the Claytons’ log home package, Honest Abe assigned one of their experienced builders, Joe Isenberg from Moss, Tennessee, where the Honest Abe headquarters is located. “Joe primarily builds log homes,” says Sharron. “He’s built Honest Abe log homes for nearly 30 years, from modest cabins to million dollar mansions, every one of them with outstanding attention, quality, and integrity.”
“We fell in love with Joe,” says Joy. “He was meticulous in every aspect of the construction of the cabin. His quality of work was phenomenal. Joe’s crew was mostly young men, each of them polite and respectful. One morning Ken and I wanted to make a big country breakfast for the crew. We cooked eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, and they all came in, sat down at the kitchen table, ate appreciatively for about 15 minutes, then said, “We have to get back to work now. Thank you so much for the great breakfast!”
Pete Malkmus of Maryville’s Mountaintop Log Home Care did the staining and chinking on the Clayton cabin. “Another one in Sharron’s stable of venerable craftsmen, Pete has an amazing talent for wood finishing,” says Ken. “I had the great fortune of working alongside him on some of the finish work, an apprentice to the master.”
Another key player in the building process was Crossville contractor John Samply, enlisted for the septic system and plumbing. He also brought the electrician and finish carpenter to the job. “There wasn’t a single glitch as the construction moved along,” claims Ken. “Honest Abe had drilled for the electric channels as they stacked the logs. Everything fell precisely into place.”
The Claytons also worked with Kaitlyn Atchley of Crossville Wholesale Carpet, who installed their selection of contrasting light and dark wide-plank birch floors. Doyle Seagrave, from the same company, supplied the cabinetry—style, finish and hardware all determined by Joy. Tim Wyatt built the beautiful masonry fireplace and chimney for the cabin.
“The really fun part began when we started picking out furnishings and accessories,” says Ken, “like the curtains.”
“How many men would say they enjoy picking out curtains?” asks Sharron. She says that because Ken was the one who had wanted a log home forever, he was picking up things along the course of his life that he knew would eventually go into his log home. Case in point: He purchased an old pie safe as a college student. “I knew I wanted a traditional log home,” explains Ken, “and therefore I wanted traditional furnishings to go with it.” Joy has an expert knack for decorating, achieving a quintessential country charm in the cabin’s décor.
“Ken and I were on the same page throughout the entire project,” Joy declares. “Once he had his mind set on a log cabin it was smooth sailing. The only thing we might have changed would be the size of the closets, we could use more storage space. But that would have necessitated an overall bigger footprint, and we are happy with the size of the cabin as is.”
Being in the ministry, Ken and Joy entertain frequently. They host two huge open houses each year, one at Christmas and one at Easter. “People don’t mind coming in and being crowded,” says Ken. “In good weather we spill out onto the front and back porches. When people come into our home all they talk about is how warm and charming it is. They want to know about all of the details, and ask if they can look around. Of course, we oblige them.” Joy also hosts retreats in the home for various church functions, and Ken envisions intimate weddings taking place on the back porch, overlooking the pond and barn and pastoral Tennessee landscape.
“Some people might not believe that it’s possible,” says Sharron Bilbrey, “but I can vow that Ken and Joy Clayton work in harmony, in whatever they do. They are a stellar example of love and support between a husband and wife, which is why their home feels so perfect, so complete.”