Swiss craftsmanship in locally built homes

WILLOW -- Driving the Parks Highway through Willow during the past two summers, during the height of the construction season, you probably found yourself waiting for a pilot car. If you were lucky, the wait was short. If you were even luckier, you got stopped at Mile 67, where you could pass the wait watching quality craftsman Romano Conzett building his scribe-fit log homes.

Conzett left Switzerland in 1996, bringing his skills and education to Alaska. He spent several years working for a Wasilla log builder before starting his own business, Summit Logwork, about three years ago. The son of an architect, Romano studied drafting and carpentry in Switzerland and built timber frame homes with his uncle before trying his hand at log construction in Alaska.

Early each fall, Conzett takes orders for the homes he will build the following year. In October, he orders the logs, which are currently being harvested from Ester. Romano presents every home design, along with his log order, to a logger in Fairbanks. Logger and log builder work closely together for the delivery of best- quality logs for the project.

Once the logs arrive at his log yard, usually around February, Conzett starts working the logs. He works whenever the weather allows.

"Last year, I worked through half the winter. The weather was very mild," Conzett said.

The logs are debarked with draw knives. After some drying time, the cambium layer of the logs is also removed. This method, called fine peeling, gives the wood a lighter and brighter look. Rough spots and knots are sanded and the logs are treated against UV and water damage.

With one employee -- Raymie Smyth of Big Lake -- Conzett said he stays busy, without being overloaded.

"It's just about right. I have a lot of work, and with just the two of us, I don't think we'll run out of work anytime soon."

Conzett and Smyth handcraft every log. They are fully scribed, with no machining used at all.

"It's very labor intensive, so it's more expensive," Conzett said, "but it's a good value, and the homes have an excellent resell value. And it's a different atmosphere to live in a log home."

Conzett is a specialty contractor, but works closely with the general contractors and the owners to make sure everyone is happy with the end result. Conzett said it takes him about two to three months to build a structure, then another three to five days to reassemble the place once it is moved to the owner's site.

There are no steel parts in the construction. Conzett uses all natural products. Like the timber frame houses he started out building back in Switzerland, Conzett uses hardwood dowels milled locally by Popperts in Wasilla instead of rebar or other hardware on his log homes. They are

Instead of Fiberglas for the insulation in his homes, Conzett uses sheep wool as an environmentally friendly natural alternative with R-values similar to or better than other insulation products.

"All the materials are from natural products," Conzett said. "I don't know any other local builder who uses the wool, but it is used in Europe and it's very natural to work with. In the heat, it's best, and there is no messing with Fiberglas.

"We are building with the overscribe technique on lateral grooves," Conzett said.

This method leaves a visible gap between the lower logs, which will shrink with the weight of the upper structure, maintaining a tight corner notch. Conzett also cuts a stress-relief kerf on top of every log to promote controlled checking, and a mortise and tenon is used on all of his log connections.

"We are using the new saddle compression notch," Conzett said. "This corner notch is superior to others in maintaining a tight fit. And the lateral grooves are coped to reduce splitting."

Using unusual and unique logs, and leaving in the knots and other interesting features of the logs are among the things that distinguish Conzett's work.

When a building is completed in the log yard, the logs are numbered and the structure is disassembled, loaded on trucks and delivered to the owner's foundation. The reassembling of the structure takes two to five days, depending on the size of the building. On customer request, Conzett is now building interior log walls, too.

The most intriguing things about Conzett's cabins, at least to those waiting in traffic during road construction this summer, are the little spruce trees that adorn the ridgepole of each completed cabin.

Now without needles and looking rather dried up, when they first go up they resemble tiny Christmas trees tacked to the highest point of the structure.

The "firstbaums" as Conzett calls them -- roughly translated, the ridge trees -- are an old Swiss carpentry tradition. The trees, adorned with ribbon and sometimes a flag, are a way of recognizing a job well done. Each person who worked on the structure offers up their bandana or handkerchief at the end of the project, and it is tied to the tree to represent their contribution to the home.

"It's a way of recognizing the guys who worked on the house, and it's done in appreciation for no accidents on the job," Conzett said. "And the tree represents where the logs came from. In the old days, when the houses were built on site, you would chop a little tree for the ridgepole, and then you would leave the stump for good luck."

Summit Logwork builds custom, handcrafted log homes and cabins in the traditional Scandinavian full scribe manner. Conzett builds the log structure only up to the roof, with posts and beams or trusses. He also builds custom stairways, log signs, picnic tables, benches and other log products.

"My way of thinking, my motto, I guess, is that we use local logs and local labor," Conzett said. "I like to keep the business local as much as I can."