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On Great Escapes, we're going to travel the wilderness,

on the hunt for unique architectural design.

I'm Colin McAllister. And I'm Justin Ryan.

We're designers and have travelled the globe, renovating houses

and adding our own unique flair

to other people's homes.

Now, we love the great outdoors

and the idea of embracing the wilderness into your home,

and, in fact, just how far people will go to achieve precisely that.

Building an escape in the woods presents magnificent opportunities

for individual design,

but also unique challenges to work in harmony with the surroundings.

Add to that, an extreme climate,

from blistering hot summers to teeth-chattering winters,

and these escapes must combine splendour with functionality.

We're going to explore properties that take that challenge

head on, as we investigate homes that celebrate the landscape

and work with the environment in interesting and distinctive ways.

On this episode, we'll be talking to people

who have never before built their own home.

But the very same people who gave it their all

to build their dream escape.

One first-time builder spent a year surveying his property,

looking for the perfect view before even breaking ground. Wow! Come on!

Some properties just stop you in your tracks!

Another drew on family history

and local heritage before building their very first dream home.

Everything's big about this property!

And our last first-time builder decided to take the simplicity

of condo life and transport it into the ultimate off-grid oasis.

I love the realisation of a dream, when you know what you want

and you go out there and you jolly well get it!

I will never forget the hassle, Colin,

of being a first-time builder in the middle of nowhere,

but it came together beautifully,

and so did the next house that we're about to visit.

Yep, it's truly a sight to behold.

We've all heard the mantra, location, location, location...

Well, this impressive 2,400 square foot escape known as Black Birch

takes full advantage of its placement

and sits naturally amongst the trees, as if it's always been here.

One of the key elements to a great building is the way it

sits on its site, to take advantage of the sun as it moves

through the sky and of course, the breezes to cool the interior.

But sometimes,

these type of details can be overlooked by a first-time builder.

That's not the case here, however.

It's clear that homeowner Chris and his wife Susan carefully

studied the site upon which Black Birch was built.

Wow! Wow! Well, I know why it's called Black Birch. Yeah.

Hey, Chris, how are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm all the better for seeing this incredible place of yours.

That mix of black exterior, the greenery, the water,

the blue skies, I have died and gone to heaven.

And this was your first build.

Can I take you inside? I'd love a look. Great, let's do it.

Windows are Chris's passion.

He has spent his life building a custom glazing business,

so it's no surprise that Black Birch would feature an impressive

display of incredible windows.

Hey, Susan. Hi, guys. How are you?

Good! Good to see you, too.

Oh, wow! We were standing outside, we were blown away,

but coming inside and seeing this incredible volume, all

the glass, all the black frameworks and the furnishing detail...

Oh, my goodness! Off the charts! One of the things that strikes me

immediately about this place is there isn't any drywalls,

so it's significantly glass on all elevations.

Chris, you are the window guy. I am the window guy.

You ARE the window guy, so this is exactly what we'd expect.

Almost 360 degrees, it really influences the architecture.

How important to you when putting this design together was

the landscape and representing aspects of what's out there, inside?

I would say it was very important. In fact, we spent a lot of time...

We spent almost a year on the property

before we started building, where we'd just come in here with

a lunch during the afternoon and just sit in the wooded forest

and decide, you know, what view we wanted, what trees we wanted.

The interesting point is

so much of the view was designed around the coffee machine,

so when we are talking about the view

and we are talking about the perspective, that's our thing,

that's what we do, how would this view look while standing

and making a coffee?

And all of a sudden, you're surrounded by the very,

very best in nature.

That's actually my favourite window. We call that our snow globe window.

That's the window when you can be sitting in the kitchen

and the snow is dropping or blowing off the trees

and it literally looks like you're in a snow globe. Amazing.

It's amazing that you actually thought of that

and this is your first big build as a couple.

We had the luxury of time,

so we weren't in a time constraint where we had to move in here.

We had tonnes of time to plan.

There was nothing here, initially, was there? Nothing.

It was forest, dense forest,

and we had to clear it all and that was a huge, huge undertaking.

I really love the open plan.

Everywhere you look, there's something else glorious to look at.

And there's never a moment where you're thinking,

"I'm bored seeing what I'm seeing."

How important for you was the open plan aspect, Susan?

Very, very important.

We have a lot of family up on the lake and a lot of friends...

Do you throw a lot of parties? Yes, we do. I can imagine. We do.

We have great parties up here. So we wanted one big,

huge open space where everyone can just mingle around

and a great flow and very interactive,

so, yeah, that was very important, to keep this space open.

I think part of the planning was

we really wanted two separate environments.

The main living area's very bright, very open and very tall,

whereas when you go into the bedrooms,

the bedrooms have a very different feel.

The bedrooms are a little bit smaller, a little bit darker,

and very quiet, so it's really and truly a retreat.

One of the stunning architectural features of Black Birch is

this incredible two-storey wall,

a feature that divides the living area from the bedrooms.

Now, not only is it gorgeous, but it's completely soundproof.

One thing I'm noticing is I'm not seeing any air conditioning

ducts anywhere. How are you cooling and how are you heating?

In-floor heating. We also wanted it

to be really warm underfoot, so we wanted to be comfortable.

Chris heats the house via radiant floor heating,

which although not a new system, is still somewhat rare.

Radiant floor heating is a system that injects heat into the floor.

The radiant floor heating is transferred to the floor

through liquid in tubes.

We don't have a cooling system.

We've been working with something called an active house

principle and that is just having as many operable

windows as possible, including entire moving walls of glass.

So it allows for a very efficient air flow,

so we don't need air conditioning.

So that's really fancy speak for open a window! Pretty much! Yes!

How does it actually work?

Would you like me to show you? Yeah! OK.

We had the balance between as big as we can get,

but not so big that we couldn't handle it.

Wow! And they are just seamless! You know, that is so simple to do.

Well, it's clearly all about that incredible view. This is awesome!

You know what, you can't get that on prescription, can you?

That feeling, that sense of connection to water.

And that wonderful feeling of tranquillity you get.

And you never tire of it cos it's always changing,

so we could walk down here in the morning and it can look

completely different and the sunsets are completely different again.

So it's never the same.

You could be in the same spot, but never get the same view.

For someone thinking about embarking on a build

for the first time, what advice would you give them?

If I had to give any advice, it's allow yourself the time

and the opportunity to execute your vision

and execute your vision properly, as opposed to having a date on which

you need or want to be in there

and everything else is a compromise

as a result of that date, cos we've seen it happen before.

It's all about the relationship between the building

and the location. Everything just works.

I like the fact that this home is

so perfectly positioned within this area of forest.

It's a big, modern, black box,

yet it doesn't feel overwhelmingly out of place.

Black Birch isn't just a home, it's the future.

It really is, I think, a statement of what you can do

when you put your mind to it to make a wonderful holiday escape.

It was the Roman engineer Vitruvius who wrote

that the three principles of good architecture

are durability, usefulness and beauty.

The breathtaking Black Birch ticks all three boxes.

But now, in our present day,

we need to add a new fourth principle to the list,

sustainability, and one of the best ways to make a structure

sustainable is by preserving the past.

It's hard to believe, but this impressive wood frame house

has its roots in humble log cabins built by early

settlers in the North American West.

This style of wood and stone construction

reached its peak in the grand stone and timber lodges built for

the brand-new National Park system

in the early part of the 20th century.

Lodges, such as Grand Canyon's El Tovar

and the Old Faithful lodge in Yellowstone

were massive in scale, but were remarkably cosy and intimate.

The architectural style is known

today as National Park Service Rustic,

or Parkitecture.

OK, don't worry, Justin. It's not a prison. Phew!

These walls used to part of an old cooperage and that of course

is the place where they would make the barrels for whisky and wine.

I wonder if they've got any whisky left indoors. What do you reckon?

I think we're going to find out!

This massive wood framed house stands at 4,850 square feet

and is the brainchild of couple Steve and Rene, who were attracted

to the property because of the ruined remains of the old

cooperage, which occupied the site from 1933 until the early 1950s.

Guys! Grand rooms! Great rooms!

Some are greater than others and this certainly delivers.

Everything's big about this property.

I'm thinking of the fact that this property is built

on the site of the old cooperage,

you've brought the wood detail in here again to reflect

days gone by, yet in a modern interpretation.

When we go to the community and they say, "Oh, you bought the Cooperage.

"My grandfather worked there. My uncle worked there.

"We used to play there as kids."

So, everybody that we talked to almost has used this property,

so why not have a great stone and wood building that matches up?

So, Steve, how does that happen?

You know, you find a great property on the lake, amazing walls,

how do you then turn that into a home?

Cos this is a first-time build for you two. A lot of research.

Mostly in the States, Wisconsin, Montana, Missouri, Colorado

in particular. And we visited, too, as well, a lot of log homes

and we looked at kind of how they were set up, how the rooms flow.

How tall is the ceiling? Cos that's a mammoth. It's 26.5ft. 26.5ft?

Yeah. How can you be so accurate? I was up there.

OK. Yes, I did the staining and...

The staining on that, yes!

And put the beam up there. Yes. With some help.

I love the size of it because you can get lost in it, if you want.

You can go into your own room and it's great.

We've got the media room where

you can go and watch the sports, if you want.

And we love the idea that friends and family can come

and that we're not like on top of each other. We can spread out.

You can be outside, you can be down at the fire pit, you can

be out on the water, kayaking, canoeing, so we love that.

Steve, is it important for you

to actually capture a sense of history in your home?

Cos this is essentially a new-build property,

but it's got a great sense of heritage about it.

It's very important. My family was a logging family in Oregon.

My grandparents came from Europe and had a homestead, 165 acres,

and they logged that and we just built the family business up,

had our own sawmill, so it has a little bit more than just wood.

It's, you know, the blood of my family too.

You know, Steve, I love that!

I like that sense of appreciation of the past,

the connection with timber,

you can see it in every single piece of wood in here.

It's amazing!

Now, the flooring here I'm seeing is that lovely kind of weathered look.

Was that inspired by the wood of the barrels? Oh!

It was definitely inspired by the wood of the barrels

and so I wanted to incorporate that in here,

so this is reclaimed wood from an old aeroplane hangar.

It's lovely, isn't it? It's really fab. It is. It's amazing.

Sourcing reclaimed materials for a first-time build,

you're using material which has already been

harvested from the forest, so by using reclaimed materials,

the energy which is used to produce a material,

that embodied energy, is already there,

so that's one of the primary advantages

of using reclaimed materials,

as well as the aesthetic.

If you want to have a home that looks like it's 200 years old,

then why not use materials that are 200 years old?

So, this room here, I call Cosy Cabin. OK. I can see why!

I wonder why

You know, it feels like a cosy cabin.

The timber is beautiful.

The bed is fantastic. I love the antique-style bedstead.

And then we have the balcony,

where we can sit outside and we can look at the lake

in the morning and have our coffee.

Isn't it self-indulgent to have an amazing space like this,

where the two of you can be together

and it feels like the rest of the world just doesn't exist?

Well, you guys have done a load of work here

and this has been your first build, so a huge achievement.

And for anyone who fancies doing this at home, you know, they think,

"OK, I'm going to build an escape," what advice would you give them?

Start with the things that you love.

Pick one piece that you love and then build around that.

It has to be something that speaks to you in your heart

and this speaks to us in our heart. Yeah.

You know, being here on the site of the old cooperage,

it's great to see it breathe again.

You know, this must have been the centre of the community.

It's been uncovered

and there are people here enjoying this amazing site.

For me, it's really exciting that Rene

and Steve have built this place as their first ever home construction.

It's a great big log home with all manner of fantastic detail.

Be inspired, be yourself. That's the lesson from this house.

It's the job of the architect to turn their client's vision

into reality and it takes a skilled architect

to bring a first-time home builder's dream to life.

Black Birch is the perfect synthesis of client vision

and architectural skill.

The Cooperage echoes the heritage of the site upon which it was built.

But sometimes, a builder's dream is so specific,

they decide to be their own architect.

We love the simplicity of condo living, the clean,

contemporary lifestyle, the feeling of a reduced amount of clutter.

It's so de-stressing and makes for a way better life.

Yeah, so why not bring that feeling into the country?

Simon and Bram have lived all over Europe and North America,

but decided to settle in the country to build their dream home

because of Bram's childhood memories of attending camp in the area.

When a large waterfront lot

with a massive shoreline became available,

they snapped it up and Bram was off to the races,

designing the off-grid home of their dreams.

Simon, talk about the rough and the smooth, rugged landscape

and super sleek building.

What a space! Thank you. Do you want to come and have a look?

I'd love to have a look inside.

Oh, hello! You know, it really is exactly like a condo.

It's like a slice of a tower block by the lake. That's the idea.

We loved our condo in the city.

We thought we'd create something just as liveable out here.

Well, you've clearly done that.

I love the realisation of a dream, when you know what you want

and you go out there and you jolly well get it!

We tend to think of condos as a millennial phenomenon,

but they actually have their roots in the German design

and architectural movement from the 1920s, known as Bauhaus.

With their credo, "form follows function",

the mission of Bauhaus was

to provide simple and functional spaces,

based on a minimalist approach,

which features clean lines with bold and graphic colourways.

There's a very contemporary feel to this.

It feels really laid out and precise.

For me, the great thing about this place is

the fact that it is so simple.

You actually let the landscape speak to us.

Those black windows really frame the trees.

The star of the show is the woods, to us.

You know, we don't need anything else, really.

We can just be here, enjoy the woods, enjoy the location.

We love the clean lines of the windows, of the walls.

We have space for our art.

We even have our condo furniture in here cos it seemed to

fit in perfectly with what we had in the city.

I like the fact that you've taken something

that most people think is a negative, you know,

cos people complain about condos, don't they? "Oh, they're too small."

So they really do dictate to you that you have to pare back

your lifestyle and it seems that you've taken

that as a positive and you've brought it here to this location.

In this house, we have everything we need and nothing we don't need.

So we feel that we're using every single room in the house,

so we feel we're really getting the most out of the house.

It also makes it easier to clean.

Yeah, so you can actually enjoy this beautiful landscape

without worrying about vacuuming.

Exactly! I could just sit there

and look out the window and enjoy it.

Now, in terms of your original plan, did you work with an architect,

or did you do the vision yourselves?

We actually did the design ourselves.

My partner, Bram, he loves architecture, he loves design,

so he sketched it out online.

Used some of this software, even put furniture in online.

Got it exactly how we want it and then we sent it to an architectural

drawer, who drew up the plans, together with an engineer.

Nowadays, you know,

with the software platforms that are in fact...

There is like freeware, there is all sorts of things that one can

use to start to tinker with architectural space.

If one is really interested in creating their own home,

there's nothing to stop you from really going with gut instinct

and looking at precedents that you like.

Now that you see everything laid out,

does it correspond to your vision? Almost perfectly.

The way the light comes through, the way everything is

great for entertaining, with the kitchen here and the living room.

It's almost, I would say, exactly to our vision.

This is your first-time build,

but you've complicated that even further by deciding to go off-grid.

Yeah. How has that played out for you guys?

It really made sense for us.

We like the idea of being off-grid, we like the independence of it.

Off-grid is the principle of not being connected to the

municipal systems, so you're not connected to the electricity

grid, the sewage grid, or to the water grid.

You are producing all the energy that you need,

you're drawing the water that you need,

and you're dealing with all your sewage waste

on your property as well.

When designing an off-grid space,

the first-time builder needs to make sure that they keep it simple,

so they have good air tightness and good insulation.

So, we've got 15 solar panels at the top of the hill,

facing the sun, 24 lead-acid batteries down in the basement,

and they give us enough electricity,

especially in the summer, we have so much electricity,

we're thinking of like selling it to neighbours or something.

In the winter, there's a lot less sun,

which means sometimes if it's a cloudy week,

we've got a generator that kicks in and tops up the batteries. Wow!

So you're totally kind of self-sufficient,

in your own little universe.

Yeah, we are. When there's hydro out, we're just fine. Exactly!

So it all sounds great, all sounds really positive.

But come on, be honest, you know, during this first-time build,

it's not like you're in the city, in the suburbs,

you're in the middle of nowhere.

That must have been really difficult.

We're in the middle of nowhere and we're on a very steep hill.

Yeah. So that was difficult.

And then, you know, we're in the middle of winter,

building, it's not always easy.

Sometimes it's hard to get in here.

First of all, we had to sort out the drainage.

All the water seems to want to come down right here where the house is

and right down to where the bunky is.

It's a very steep slope down to the lake.

We have to climb that every day, so did our contractors have to

climb all the way up and down, like 15 times in a morning.

You'd have legs like a mountain gazelle,

going up and down that particular precipice.

One reason why we chose this lot is

because it has 500ft of waterfront and six acres.

Six acres! So it is isolated.

That kind of land, it's hard to find around here

and so, although it's a challenging lot,

with the hill, we chose to buy it.

So you very successfully champion the small-scale living.

What is the actual square footage?

So the actual house is 1,250 square foot,

plus 100 extra for the covered patio out there.

So, how many bedrooms do you have in here?

We have two bedrooms, but we also have the bunky.

We decided to keep this house up here just for us,

cos it's nice to have guests, but sometimes, you want them

to be a little bit distant,

so that's why we've got a bunky down by the lake for the guests.

It's a challenge for any architect

to connect two buildings on the same property

with nothing except design.

First-time architects and builders Bram

and Simon rose to the challenge of tying this bunky to the main house.

It functions as overflow space for guests

and echoes the architecture with the same simplicity of design,

the same exterior materials, and, of course,

floor to ceiling windows with a spectacular view.

So, this is the bunky! Yep. There was a bunky here,

but we decided to take it down and build it on the footprint.

Oh! This is cute. Wow! This is just unbelievable.

The view, you know, nature, its purity, its proximity.

I really like this because it kind of serves all requirements.

A little living zone here, somewhere to prepare drinks,

bit of a snack, bed zone round the corner. It's got it all.

You can be very comfortable here.

You know, you could stay here all day

and you've got everything you need,

you can just enjoy the lake and come back here in the evening.

You've considered its placement and how it affects the topography.

And we also considered its relationship

to the house at the top of the hill too.

We kind of call it big box, little box.

The family resemblance. Right, exactly. I love it.

I like the use of timber in here

because you do blur the lines between the forest

and the inside, timber floor, timber furniture,

the kind of very pale timber on the walls. It all seems to work.

You know, nothing is too painted. It's all really natural in here.

We took a lot of our cues from what's around us, so a lot of wood

around us, a lot of greys, of rock around us,

so it makes you feel like you're part of nature.

I'm going to say it right now. I think I'd rather be here!

I'm thinking of moving down here actually, myself.

So, what was the most successful thing about this,

for two first renovators who have come

from the city to a rural location?

I think this bunky actually is it.

Where else do you get a place where you can hang out so close to a lake?

And this is just an oasis for us.

I love it when opposites come together

and create something positive,

cos this shouldn't work, but it does.

You know, you've got this super smooth, sleek building

and this incredibly rough landscape, but it all works.

It's amazing how times change.

You think, in days gone by, of off-the-grid living

and you think of a real kind of hippy commune.

You know, producing your own power is super cool now.

It's about being self-sufficient.

It's about not putting a drain on resources

and it's about just taking control of your own destiny.

I think it's hip, not hippy! Mm-hm.

Now, they say that fortune favours the brave

and that certainly can be said for each of our home builders

because they haven't made it easy for themselves by choosing

a rural location for their first-time builds.

But it's clear, to build a great escape,

these elements are important. Careful study of the landscape

and patient planning to hone your vision.

Build on those things that inspire.

A sense of heritage and personal history.

Keep it simple and sustainable.

Three brilliantly brave builders, three incredible first-time builds.

I'm feeling inspired. Do you know?

I feel really inspired as well

because they're all so distinctly different,

yet, I'll tell you something else they share in common,

the fact that they're all great escapes.

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