The Satterwhite Difference

The Satterwhite Difference

As you browse our website or look at our literature, you'll see lots of pretty pictures and many enticing floor plans. You'll see how Satterwhite does things and why. But I can summarize what you should remember about us that sets us apart, and why you should join our family of log home owners in just a few words.

Commitment

Satterwhite Log Homes is in our fifth decade of building and providing materials for quality log cabins, log homes, and log commercial structures. We are committed to what we do and how we do it. We have four locations to help us better serve our customers.

Family Owned.

The Satterwhite Family is "All In" with this family business and preparing our third generation to work hard for you. We have employees and crews who have served our customers for 20, 30, even 40 years. Some of our employees are second and third generation.

Dry Logs

We are fanatics about using dry house logs to build stable, strong log homes. Dead-standing timber, with its great insulating properties, provides us with the perfect building material. With dry timber we are assured less shrinkage and settling than almost all of the log home industry.

Flexibility

Our floor plans or yours, no problem! Satterwhite offers a combined total of over 75 floor plans to choose from or make changes to. However, our design department can also help design your one-of-a-kind dream log home.

Satterwhite offers one of the most comprehensive material packages in the industry. However, you can purchase as much or as little as you like.

We offer shell construction in nine southern states. Satterwhite crews have a combined total of 244 years experience building ONLY Satterwhite log homes.

From Forest to Jobsite

We are able to offer mill-direct pricing because it's Satterwhite from forest to job site. You are buying from the timber company, logger, sawmill, lumber yard, and builder, all in one.

Loyal long term employees are the core of our business. Expect expert, friendly assistance from people who have been around long enough to appreciate that loyalty to what is best for the customer is the best way to be loyal to our company.

1974 -- Our first customer's log home.

Our History

SA"ITERWHITE LOG HOMES began with humble beginnings: and we are still humble, (and a little proud). Our journey is truly an example of hard work, perseverance, and a great group of employees.

Beginning in 1983, Satterwhite began buying dead-standing timber direct from the U.S. Forest Service and operating our first sawmill in Gypsum, Colorado. In 1997, our primary sawmill was moved to its present location in Gunnison, Utah.

Sam Satterwhite, founder and owner of Satterwhite Log Homes

Early days ...

Sam Satterwhite left college in 1973, lacking a semester of graduating, to start his own business. With plans to use his real estate broker's license to sell farm and ranch properties, he decided to first built his own home which was a brick A-frame, quite different for conservative East Texas. A friend of his in the timber business stopped by one day and asked him, "If you'll build something as different as an A-frame, would you consider building me a log home?" Sam began building that first log home near Henderson, Texas in late 1974.

Sam's first secretary was Travonda Nicholas, who later became Travonda Satterwhite House logs for that first "Log Cabin"

were milled from dead-standing Engelmann Spruce from Colorado.Using dry wood made sense then and it still does! Sam and Travonda married in the fall of 1976 and a lifelong partnershipbegan. Satterwhite Log Homesmoved from the A-frame into asmall 14 x 20 log cabin. Using an old teacher's desk, a typewriter from Travonda's parent's home, and an old Monroe adding machine purchased from a used office equipment store, an office was established. Travonda manned the office during the day while Sam worked building log homes. Appointments with customers were held during the evening hours. With no formal training, Travonda drew the early floor plans. Sam would do the estimating at night

Business flourished, and within 6 months Sam was that mill's best customer. Soon their capacity was not enough, so Satterwhite started purchasing from other mills. By 1978, Satterwhite was buying timbers, or "cants;' all over the West and having them custom planed.

As business grew, Longview became headquarters, and offices moved into a new building, always expanding. The Satterwhites' homes over the years were used as models for the company until the kids - Christi, Nick, and Lindsey - realized that normal people didn't have strangers wandering through their homes six days a week.

Today

Today Satterwhite has two models near the headquarters, plus showrooms there. At Longview, there is a log home lumberyard; specialty shop for mantels, tables, and custom cutting; warehouses, mill, and distribution. The Longview headquarters building is like Johnny Cash's Cadillac, a sprawling 16,000 square feet Built in 1982, '85, '87, and 2000!

Our Utah facility is a 100+ acre log yard mill, warehouses, and office facility, built from 1997 to 2010. The office provides full service for the Western US, and features Swedish Cope 7" and 12" construction. Any of our products can be purchased there.

In 2006, we set up an office in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Ellijay, Georgia. The combination office and model home has been complimented many times as being the "most beautiful log model home in the Eastern United States;· and it serves that part of the country. We also have a warehouse there, with delivery capabilities.

Built in 2016, Satterwhite has a sawmill facility in Chama, New Mexico. It was built to saw rough lumber and timbers from dead-standing Spruce we harvest in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Plans are to build a log office there.

For all these years, we have unwaveringly believed that dead-standing timber is the best building material for log homes, and we've had wonderful people to do the work that allowed us to grow, prosper, and build our reputation.

Our folks come to work for a livelihood, not just a job. Many have retired after decades, and many current employees have been a critical part of the company 20, 30, even 40 years.

Travonda and Sam are still at the helm, and the entire Satterwhite family is involved. We are a family business, but to us, family is not just the Satterwhites, but everybody in our company family! (Bill Snow, Satterwhite's first customer, stills stops by often. He even came to work as our Forester for about 15 years, until retiring a few years back!)

Why do we not use locally grown Southern Ye l lowPine or Eastern White Pine for our log homes? It surewould make our lives simpler!

High and Dry Why do we not use locally grown Southern Yellow Pine or Eastern WhitePine for our log homes? It sure would make our lives simpler!

We believe, first and foremost, that log home logs are best if they aredry. (To us, dry means below 17% moisture content all the way through!)Southern Yellow or Eastern White Pine are not found in commercially adequate stands of dry dead trees, so they would have to be sawed green,then dried in a kiln.

That process causes twisting and difficulty in getting the heart of a timber dry enough for our standards.

By using dry wood, shrinkage has already occurred. Most wood speciesshrink from 7-12% in size as they go from their green state to dry. In alog cabin, that shrinkage is multiplied as settling in a log wall. Imagine of8 courses, or layers, of logs eachshrinking an inch after your cabin or house is built.

The result is a wall system that has huge gaps between the logs or a wall that is 8 inches shorter a couple of years later! By using pre-dried logs, almost all of that shrinkage and subsequent settling, has already happened prior to construction.

In the inter-mountain West, bark beetles have ravaged huge forest of Lodge-pole Pine and Engelmann Spruce. The Spruce grows high in the Rockies, beginning in the Aspen band and growing up to the tree line. There the growing season is short (so is the logging season!) So, trees grow very slowly. Growth rings are very close together so the wood is very stable.

Every individual Satterwhite house log is moisture tested to stringent standards that insure outstanding performance in your home.

We harvest this bug-killed timber which in most cases has been standing at 10,000 feet for years so that it is dry to the heart, or almost. The bark beetles that kill the trees literally mine the bark off the trees, strangling the nutrient flow. These insects feed on the cambium layer under the bark and are not interested in the wood underneath.

Our Utah mill is located (not accidentally) in a high desert at about 5,200 feet, so that Spruce lumber not already dry can easily be air-dried to our desired moisture contact. This type of wood has been Satterwhite's source since 1974. It has served us, and you as a homeowner well.

Almost all trees harvested by Satterwhite Log Homes are obtained under contract from the United States National Forest Service.

Satterwhite Log Homes and Stewardship

For all these years, Satterwhite has prided ourselves in using dead-standing Engelmann Spruce, found in the higher elevations, for our house logs and many components of our houses.

Conservation and Commitment

Most of this Spruce is located in our National Forests and managed by the U.S. Forest Service. As we perform our logging and hauling, we are under stringent regulations to protect the land, watersheds, and residual timber for the good of us all.

Efficiency

By logging dead timber, weights are greatly decreased both for hauling logs to the mill and hauling finished products to the jobsite, thus more board footage is moved per truck, decreasing fuel consumption per board foot and saving transportation cost.

High altitude logging in the Wasatch Mountains of Central Utah. Engelmann Spruce used in Satterwhite house logs is the highest altitude species found in North America.

We are conservationists who believe that the resources God has blessed us with have to be used wisely. Satterwhite works well with the Forest Service. We don't try to cut corners; thus, we have many friends in the Forest Service and our timber sales have even been used for congressional tours to show the right way to log dead timber.

At our mills, we are constantly trying to saw more efficiently, as well as saw for the highest and best use of each log. Satterwhite offers a myriad of sizes in our products. We do this to satisfy the wishes of our customers, and to best utilize our log supply, since logs come to us in all sizes and with numerous combinations of product sizes that can be sawn.

We even maximize the use of by-products so that none of the tree is wasted. We make firewood, usable slabs, sawdust, chi12s, and are seP.arate round mulctilandscaP.e mulch, animal al bedding,and l)acking material. At our Utah Plant, the vast majority is used

Log Homes and Energy Efficiency.

Properly built log homes are extremely energy efficient,even though "R Factor" ratings may not indicate so.

High and Dry

Properly built log homes are extremely energy efficient, although a strict application of "R" factor would make one think otherwise. "R" factor determination is a lab test which does not take into consideration real world factors that can dramatically alter thermal performance. "R" factor was derived by the fiberglass insulation industry to tout their products. You wouldn't expect them to devise a test to make other products to look better than theirs, would you?

Energy Efficiency

Text book "R" factor rating gives wood only about 1.25 "R's" per inch of thickness, but actual comparisons of walls has shown a 5 ½"- 6" thick log wall to be at least equivalent to R-19 conventional construction. Satterwhite's dry log walls with good quality windows, coupled with spray foam insulation in the roof system can assure you a very well-insulated, energy efficient home for decades to come!