Town and Country? Isn’t that the company that builds really luxurious and expensive log homes? Not quite! 

Town & Country has responded to growing industry demands for customized styles and enhancements by extending their craftsmanship to the timber, cottage and craftsman style homes found throughout the country. They now build in many styles and for many budgets.  “We not just log homes,” states Stephanie Baldwin, “We’re custom homes – in any style or size the client desires”.  From the lofty, lineal styling of Telluride’s timber frame homes, to the bead board paneled and cedar shingled Cottages of Bay View and Bay Harbor, Town & Country Cedar Homes designs and builds for all lifestyle choices. The common foundation for all Town & Country Cedar Homes is just two entwined elements: Northern White Cedar and a dedication to customer service. 

COTTAGE CLASSIC STYLING

Town & Country’s new Cottage Classics Series of homes offers the option of building one of five multi-storied floor plans with either a cottage finish or a log home finish on the interior and exterior. This series of homes, targeted for the more modest budget,  begins at just 2000 sq. ft. These designs create the ambiance of a large home inside the efficiency of a smaller, more compact design without lowering the level of quality, craftsmanship or style. The cottage style features cedar shake shingles with charming touches like flower boxes, gables and cupolas. The Arts and Crafts style features crisp accents of timber and heavy wood. 

Town & Country President, Stephanie Baldwin, along with husband and son, chose the Whitman Cabin floor plan to build on their property on the Chestnut Valley golf course. This design includes a three bedroom, two bath, two storied plan with 1495 s.f. on main level and 777 sq. ft. on the second level.  The unique exterior and interior finish includes a multi-toned log exterior with craftsman style front porch, and a low, English pub style faux log beams and with cedar paneling in the great room – all centered around the fieldstone fireplace.   Built in glass bookcases uniquely separate the great room from the dining area. The Whitman floor plan, as all Cottage Classics floor plans, are named after famous American authors and come complete with a book by the author whose name graces the design.

A range of interior options make each home in the Cottage Classics Series even more distinctive. Homeowners can personalize the internal finishes to create ahome that is uniquely theirs, from room to room. When opting for the cottage look, clients will add bead board accents, white kitchen cupboards, whitewashed wood trim, traditional mantel in the great room, pastel colors on the walls and wainscoting in the den. Cabin finishes include flair posts on the covered front porch, tongue and groove cedar paneling in the den with built in cedar bookshelves, heavy timber mantles on large fieldstone fireplaces, hand-hewn log trim and structural trusses. By utilizing one of the existing plans, the client can lower his costs while preserving the standard Town & Country Cedar Home offering of spacious rooms and cathedral ceilings.

PICTURES: BALDWIN HOME

HYBRID HOME DESIGN

          Town & Country’s design style extends to the hybrid home as well – a home that mixes textures, style and finishes to compliment the client’s lifestyle.  Each hybrid home is a showcase of personal style,” states draftsperson Michelle Musser, who puts the finishing touches on a client’s floor plan at her CAD station. “We work closely with clients to add in all the luxury details that make their house a home”, she explains.

          Some of the more recent innovations in hybrid design include urban placement of a homes containing a mix of log and timber elements, with additions of textured stone and stucco flooring or walls, and brick and stone exterior elements. Town & Country is the only log home manufacturer whose designs successfully allow for drywall to be placed inside the exterior walls of the home, allowing the client to break up the lineal feel of a wood paneled interior, allowing simple walls to frame the client’s artwork or photography.   Innovations of home and individual room design offered by Town & Country include craft or studio rooms, home theaters, home offices, art galleries, butler’s pantries, outdoor kitchens or gazebo’s and living spaces, plus radial bay multi-season porches. In high demand are spaces designed for children or grandchildren, including built in bunk rooms, children’s interior play areas and ‘intelligent’ homes optimized for wireless computers and high speed internet.  High level luxury designs may incorporate such amenities as curved staircases with Cinderella-style, turreted guest suites. “There is no limit to the amount of customization and personalization that can be built into a Town & Country Cedar Home”, explains Stephanie Baldwin, President.

          Built by Michael Moceri Design Build, a Town & Country Director in Novi, Michigan, one recently completed hybrid home expands to more than 8000 s.f. of personalized, urban living.  Located in Northville, Michigan, the three story, three car garage home is landscaped with hundreds of tiered boulders to create outdoor seating areas, waterfalls and picturesque ponds to simulate Up North living in a downstate environment. The combination brick, stone and log home exterior is enhanced by craftsman style windows.  The interior ceiling sours overhead with masterful log beams and warmly hued paneling, yet draws visitors to relex in a low-lying, Ralph Lauren styled fireside furniture grouping. This hybrid home blends elaborate details such as aromatic cedar shake gables with curved staircases of mahogany stained woods, a tudor-style Alder front door and scrolled iron railings. While walls and floors are built using traditional frame construction, Town & Country homes typically boast insulation values up to R-38, lending their homes that ‘solid’ feeling as well as Energy Star rates that meet – and in some areas exceed – the US Department of Energy standards.