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f1V-1_ i,1181 - -------~~--._-.---------------,-- Home built from By Jill Atkin Expositor Staff HAGERSVILLE - Daniel Smith's heritage surrounds him in more than one way on his prop- erty on Sour Springs Road. Not only is his land part of what was owned by his father before him, but the.house he and hi~ wife, Nelle, live in was hewn from t~at land. The retired couple live in _ a cosy log house, co~tructed with white and red oak logs cut from the woods behind their R6 Hagersville home, not far inside the boundary of the Six Nations Re- serve. Mr. Smith built the house - and some of the furniture inside - himself, when he returned to Canada 17 years ago after working as a veteri- narian in New Zealand for nearly 30 years. A mixture of Canadiana, hints from New Zealand homes and modern technology make the house an unusually graceful "log cabin." Gracious interior The rough-and-ready, log and concrete exteri- or belies the Oriental rugs, exotic artwork, sauna and airy rooms inside. The house has two bed- rooms, a den-library, dining room, kitchen and bathroom upstairs. The basement houses a two-vehicle garage, workrooms (where much of the inside woodwork was done) and the sauna. The sauna's 8,000-watt heater ·brings the ·temperature up in a · niatter ··of minutes, and a cooling shower and rest bed offer relief to those who venture into its fiery depths. Constructing a house out of oak logs takes pa- tience and planning, according to Mr. Smith. The extreme· density of oak makes the logs heavy, witll many of the larger ones weighing two tons. Because of this, standard concrete blocks could not be used to construct the foundation. To hold the weight, Mr. Smith looked for the biggest concrete blocks he could find , finally locating them in Paris. The 12-by-20-by-10-inch blocks ~ ... - at. 189~ each. -· "The bricklayers really earned their money while we were putting in the "foundation," he said with a chuckle. · The bricklayers, and an electricfan and plumber for hookups, were the only outside help he used. The main construction was done by him, with help from a builder friend visiting from New 21ealand. , · "I tried to find a contractor that would take on the job, but no one would touch a log house in those days," said Mr. Smith. " I did the job my- self because I had to." l'he hc,use measures 48 feet by 26 feet, and and bottom lo s of the walls run through the building in one piece. Some of the timber started out 60 feet long. Although not precisely uniform, tpe logs are about 10 inches in diameter. They were lifted into place for the first five feet by a front-end loader on a tractor. After that didn't reach.high enough, the men set up a boom with a two-ton block and tackle and lifted the logs into place one end at a time. · . Holding the logs together is a mixture of mor- tar ; and cement, which is anchored to chicken wire wound through the wood, The fireplace, a central point of interest in the dining room as you walk in the front door, was one of the ideas imported from New Zealand where homes which have fir:eplaces use the sys- tem. Called a wetback fireplace, the space behind the firebox is a huge steel tank of water. When the fire burns, the water boils creating steam which is piped to radiators in the den, or to the basement to heat water there. The steel was made to his specifications in Guelph. When the Smiths are not at their Palm Spr- ings winter retirement home, the fireplace helps to keep the oil bills down. Mr. Smith conceived the idea for his log home in New Zealand. He had always wanted to live in a log cabin, and explained his idea to a friend who was a .architect. His friend drew up blue- prints to give him an idea of what would be needed and the idea became a plan. . During visits to Canada in 1967 and 1968, Mr. Smith ~hose and cut several of the logs to be used in the house, leaving them in the woods until 1970 when be returned to Canada to stay. The rest of the logs were cut that year, and drawn out of the woods to the house's location. Unconventional more fun During the next 18 months, the house was con- structed and finished inside. Mr. Smith built much of the furniture from kits he had brought from New Zealand. "I could have built a conventional house in half the .time, with half the labor, trot it wouldn have been nearly as much fun ," Mr. Smith said. The house sits on 200 acres of land, part of the original 1,000 acres accumulated by his father. Each of five brothers in the family of 10 were giv- en 200 acres. · Mr. Smith leased his land while he trained for four years at the Ontario College of Agriculture in Guelph, then for five as a veterinary surgeon. When in 1942, the New Zealand government was desperate for veterinarians because of the war, Mr. Smith and two of his college companions went there to work "for a few years." For Mr. Smith, that few years turned into 30,