Jim again,
Have you ever wondered where to start when you are given a blank canvas or sheet of paper? If you thought that was difficult, try thinking about how you want to use a large tract of land with nothing on it. That’s what we were faced with on The Ridge. As Tammy discussed in her July 9, 2023 Recollections post entitled “Buy Dirt”, we ended up with 53.57 acres of land on the end of a ridge line (“The Point” looks like a peninsula from an aerial view with the grade falling away to deep forested valleys below us), covered with open pasture land accessed by a grass covered cow path. And boy, did it have some views! A brush fire had burned up the side of the mountain several years before our purchase of the property and many of the large trees had been burned or cut down which had opened up some of the views. Unfortunately, the new low brush growth in the fire area made some of our early exploring of the property very difficult.
We spent the first few years camping and exploring where we could, getting to know the land. We were experiencing what life up on The Ridge was all about and thinking about what we wanted it to be in the future. The more time we spent there, the more ideas we had about what structures we were going to want and need. We talked a lot about them, sketched them, and refined our ideas for them. This process is the basis of any good programming. Knowing what you want in a structure, what you want it to “do” and how its various program functions will finally take shape is key to a successful built solution.
It wasn’t long before I realized that all these ideas called for some Master Planning. We were going to end up with multiple structures. We needed a long term, strategic plan so that we would know where these structures were going to be placed on the site, long before they were actually built. Master Plans help to ensure that there will be a sense of order in the relationship of buildings, spaces and activity locations even though they don’t happen at the same point in time.
Some of the criteria we considered for our Master Plan were: what and where are the views; what types of structures are planned; what is the relationship of the structures to one another; is the orientation of the structures important; what will you see when you approach the site; how/where will the services enter the site (i.e power lines); is there a front yard or back yard; how do you access the structures; along with a number of other questions. There is also a general building code consideration of thirty feet between structures for fire separation.
Tammy and I spent many hours discussing all of this. We also walked around on the most level parts of the top of The Ridge taking measurements and marking our property lines. We started to consider the scale and relationships of the structures we were talking about. We discussed the priorities for these structures and of course had many difficult conversations about our scarce financial resources.
Tammy would be the first to tell you that this part of the planning process at Runaway Ridge was very hard for her. We have learned a lot about ourselves and each other throughout our time of working on The Ridge. The large scales of Master Planning are not her forte. But she hung in there, participated in conversations, held up the surveyors stick, drove stakes and helped me make string perimeters for the footprints of various future structures.
The very first built item on The Ridge was a swingset (built 1993). I made it to keep the kids occupied. See Tammy’s August 29, 2023 Recollections post entitled “The Early Years”. It was placed in an area that was already pretty clear, could be mowed fairly easily and had great views of sunsets. When we started talking about an actual structure to give us some protected interior space, we needed to decide on where it would go. We settled on building it in an area with some of the best views we had at the time, relatively close to the swingset.
The location of the first “shack” (built 1994), see Tammy’s May 22, 2024 Recollections post entitled “Early Settlers of the Tiny House Nation”, was based on it being as close to the top of the ridge as possible and parallel to one of the segments of our property line. At the time, it was somewhat arbitrary but it turned out to be a good decision and the rest of the Master Plan took shape around it.
Being on The Ridge is all about being out of doors and close to nature. We needed an outdoor shelter for doing some meal prep, cooking, serving, eating and generally just a place to get out of the sun. We were going to need some type of toilet and bathing facilities. We were interested in having a garden. We wanted areas for games and outdoor activities. In the long term we would want a cabin and would probably need a barn for storage of equipment and materials.
All of these structures, with the exception of the future cabin, would need to be established on somewhat level ground so that no major excavation would be required. I laid out the Master Plan for the location of these structures on an axis parallel to the top of the ridgeline. I knew that an eventual power line would be coming onto our property from the North, so I decided to use the Shack as our southern anchor point keeping the field beyond it clear. This would maintain our great views to the south and west. I would plan for services and working areas to the north.
The next structure needed after the Shack was the Picnic Shelter (built 1997). Since it was going to be our main outdoor living space, I felt it was important to locate it at the center of the other structures around it. I worked with the ridge axis and set the picnic shelter’s southern end 30’ from the door of the Shack (remember that 30’ fire separation in the building code). The Washhouse would be the same footprint as the shack, located the same 30’ from the picnic shelter’s northern end. The Shack and the Washhouse would “bookend” the picnic shelter. The Picnic Shelter was designed to accommodate gatherings of a couple of families to be seated at long picnic tables down the middle of its long dimension.
The future cabin would be centered on the East/West axis of the Picnic Shelter, facing its open side. The Cabin could be built on the hillside, making the most of the natural grade change, sloping down from east to west. The main floor access would be at the same level as the Picnic Shelter but you could also access the basement on grade from the west end of the Cabin. The Cabin construction wouldn’t even begin until 2019, but some of the excavating for it was done very early on.
Speaking of some early excavating, we knew we needed to have some of the young locust trees (that had sprung up after the fire) and undergrowth cleared on the western slope of The Ridge just so we could keep our views clear and stand a chance of being able to stay ahead of the growth of the scrub and vines. Our friend and country neighbor, “Fireman John”, brought out his bulldozer and pushed the trees and scrub down the hillside. At the same time, I had him scrape off topsoil and level out an area for a barn. I wanted it to be large enough for a drive through structure with easy approach access at both ends. The barn is 18’ x 40’ (built 2014) and is the Northernmost structure in the compound. Its long dimension is centered on the center North/South axis of the other structures. It is the building located nearest to the entrance to our property.
A garden area was laid out north of the future washhouse and south of the barn along the ridge axis with a small windmill at the center. There have been times that we had produce growing in plots in the garden but there have been many years where it has just gotten mowed like the rest of the acreage as we wait to give it the attention it will need to be producing again.
Next was the Washhouse (built 2017). This structure would give us enclosed bathing and toilet facilities. For many years there were just rocks sitting on the ground indicating the Washhouse footprint! We went through a temporary shower/pump house and a single seat outhouse prior to building the Washhouse.
All of these improvements have taken time and money. Sometimes we had one and not the other. And as you can see by the dates I have given for when each one was built, it has sometimes been years between construction projects. But throughout the process, the Master Plan has given our “compound” its sense of order and has given us guidelines for future ideas about additional structures and elements and where they should be located.