Gregory and Kym Lagios had corporate careers in the Boston area, working long, hard hours. Their efforts paid off, earning them enough income to afford an early retirement. “Kym and I had been searching for property in the Lakes Region for several years,” says Greg, “and came across this lot through our friend and realtor Gerard Constantino. What we love about our site are the views of the water and mountains, along with our very own 106-foot private sand beach. Rural enough to afford them plenty of pea…

The story about how this pièce sur pièce log home came to be built is a true epic tale of timely decisions, good fortune and, most of all, perseverance. It all started back in the mid-1970s when Gaétan Ruel and his wife Nicole welcomed their third child. At the time, they were living in a beautiful modern mountainside home facing a ski hill in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec. But they were quite a distance away from schools, grocery stores, and recreational centers for the kids, and with only weekend…

In 2004, Marine Staff Sergeant Vincent Gizzarelli’s life changed. During his second tour of duty in Iraq, Vince’s anti-armament platoon was called out to assist a rifle squadron that had been engaged in combat. While in transit, an IED went off about 20 feet away from his HumVee. “I saw an orange flash; then everything went black,” Vince recalls of the night that would eventually end his military career. Diagnosed with severe brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, Vi…

When Charles and Lana Sangmeister said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of central New Jersey seven years ago they had no idea that they’d be in for such a treat. After retiring from their jobs, the Sangmeisters returned to Lana’s Montana roots and purchased 277 acres of land in the small town of Nye. Nestled in the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains, the region proved to be the perfect backdrop for the couple’s new log cabin home. Before that dream came to fruition the Sangmeisters studied hundreds o…

Log home producers mill logs to uniform dimensions and then combine them with other structural components and building materials to make a log home package. The uniform look of a milled log home is often what is most appealing to log home buyers. When Sue and Mike McKenrick moved to Morgantown in the northeastern part of West Virginia, they wanted to settle down somewhere with space and privacy. With their four children grown, they didn’t need a huge home, but as avid motorcyclists they sought room for …

A ski trip to Deer Valley, Utah, more than a dozen years ago awakened a deep love for log homes in Donn and Candy Fuller. “We rented this beautiful handcrafted, full-log home with more than 10,000 square feet of space,” recalls Donn Fuller, an orthopedic surgeon in Fort Myers, Florida. “It was just gorgeous.” On another ski trip the Fullers discovered where they wanted to build their dream vacation home: Big Sky, Montana. “Another orthopedic doc friend invited us out and we just fell in love with Montan…

Some folks maintain that everything happens for a reason. When Kevin Nunn, owner of Bear Creek Log Homes, was hired to build a log home for a client in the mountains of North Carolina, an opportunity seemed to fall into his lap, one that he could not resist.  The project was located at Cave Rock Estates, a new development just south of Sparta, not far from the Virginia border. Kevin’s client, the owner of the development, had purchased 280 acres with the intention of dividing it into parcels for sa…

“There’s not much that tops the happiness we feel on the day we launch our boat at Swan Lake,” say Montana residents Mike and Linda Smith. “It’s usually in the month of May,” they continue, “when the lake is uniquely quiet and beautiful.” The event signals the beginning of summer fun at the cabin. Conversely, the day the boat comes out of the water at summer’s end is melancholic for the couple. The Smiths’ sentiments are understandable, considering their idyllic lakefront property and sleek contemporary…

Handcrafted log homes highlight the natural beauty and unique characteristics of the wood. Each home is one of a kind. “It wasn’t going to be quite this large, originally,” says Marvin Meyers, regarding his log home on the Yampa River, near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. “But the more time my wife, Tish, and I spent visiting our property the more we realized that our family and friends would also want to spend time here.” Initial cabin floorplan designs came in at around 2,500 square feet. The final plan …

From the back porch of their log cabin home, Bill and Dedie Nutt have an up close and personal view of nature that few people ever get to experience. For example, nearly every night, right around sunset, a cinnamon bear (really a black bear in its “cinnamon” color phase) ambles down to their man-made pond, stoops over, and quenches its thirst with a long, slow drink of water. “It’s pretty amazing to see,” says Bill, “and right in our own backyard.” That cinnamon bear is just one of the many slices of na…