Wooded retreat build

Photography: Tony Soluri Photography and Tom Harris Architectural Photography

FFor Paul Caron, owner of Caron Custom Homes in Decatur, Michigan, a successful, high-quality custom home is defined by its honest and informative process, exacting level of detail, and a driven mindset to push the build envelope. It is in the experience and the journey, from initial conceptual plan and meeting to realized vision and first step beyond the threshold, that a design-build process delivers upon the trust instilled in a contractor—an aspect Caron considers integral to a well-built home and process.

“If I’m building a home for you, I want to be very proud of what I’m building for you. What is important in a custom home, to me, is the level of quality. I strive for perfection and will go over things to ensure it. From a customer standpoint, that is a huge level of trust that you can put in me as a builder, that I look at a home that way, and trust with a contractor is huge,” Caron said. “It is delivery, but delivering not just the home, but also can you deliver a relationship and a trust level and everything with it—or did you just deliver a home and the people are happy to see you gone out of their lives?” Caron added.

The company

Caron Custom Homes is a design-build firm offering custom home, general contracting, and custom cabinetry services to clients throughout the Michiana, New Buffalo, Union Pier, St. Joseph, Sawyer, and Lake Michigan region. Specializing in waterfront properties, Caron Custom Homes provides a range of services in new build and remodel work, such as: site planning, excavation, budgeting, project management, construction and framing, drywall installation, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, kitchen and bath woodwork and design, concrete, and landscaping, among others.

For roughly 20 years, the firm has worked with architects, designers, and homeowners to deliver well-crafted custom homes backed by a process informed by open and honest communication, developing a portfolio of work spanning typology and scale across its geographical footprint. Caron noted as a design-build firm that often partners with other architects, at times the level of design provided by the firm is pulled back, but having a working knowledge of design is important as a builder.

“That is what they do best, so that makes the most sense, but if you have some design sense as a contractor of what works and what looks good and how things are supposed to go together—do you have a mechanical mindset of how things work—then I think you are all the better as a contractor,” Caron said.

“In contracting, we have our own carpenters who work for us. We do more than just contract the work; we are interactive in the work with our hands and with the work we do. Personally, I am proud of the fact that I was a master carpenter long before I was a general contractor, because I can implement all those things into our labor force and into our projects. I think that is what makes us who we are,” Caron added.

Caron’s foray into the field initially began while in high school enrolled in a trades program working for a number of custom home builders. Driven by a relentless pursuit to do something bigger and better—paired with an affinity for the build process and for working with people—Caron quickly went from framing crew to custom home building entrepreneur.

“I enjoy building. I enjoy working with

people. Like a lot of people, at that early stage in my life, I wanted to advance and saw an opportunity to work on a framing crew for a number of years and make more money. That was always the name of the game, how do you make more money in construction, which definitely shaped how I worked and what I was capable of; what was expected of me,” Caron said.

“There was a lot of mentoring through those years. A framing crew is fast-paced, it’s very hard work, and you are pushed hard, so it pushed me to be probably a lot better at what I did and a lot more efficient at what I did, but I still learned a lot from the custom home building side as well. Still today, as you work with people, you take something from every interaction and you apply it to what you do to make yourself better,” Caron added.

Now, nearly two decades after starting the firm, Caron said the process is one that recognizes every client and every situation is different, requiring flexibility and a little bit of intuition to ensure the experience is enjoyable for

them and the final product meets their needs and expectations.

“Some customers are very hands-off— and some architects are very hands-off—and their expectations are just as high as the next person. You have to know how to handle that project. Other people, they have to have more interaction with you, they have to know what is happening tomorrow, not next week,” Caron said. “You really just have to be intuitive with yourself and with people and with the state of the project—and is the process you are using with that project going to be effective or is it not? It is always being very upfront, open, honest, and keeping things as black and white as you can on paper, and being informative.”

Caron Custom Homes also has an inhouse woodworking shop where the team provides full customization of cabinetry from design to cabinet-making for clients. The custom cabinetry service became an in-house operation about 12 years ago when Caron said he had the opportunity to acquire a cabinet-maker company when the owner was set to retire. Caron noted that while it was a horrible time in 2009 to decide to venture into a new direction as a young business, he recognized it as a key part of some of the homes they were building at the time and knew it would be an integral part of the process moving forward.

“There is a comfort level knowing that your contractor is in charge of all your cabinetry, your finishing items, and that we are not only just in charge of that, but also we are helping with the design if needed. We are working with the architect on their designs and making sure everything is built to spec and if there are additional things that we think of as we are midstream in construction, we are showing them what we have built and they make a change and it is something easy for us to do, because we are in full control of that,” Caron said.

“I think the more places you have control over your project, the better, and in your finishing; that is really what everyone is looking at when the home is done, is this finished product. So, having our hands into that, fully, I think is a huge benefit to how our homes finish,” Caron added.

The team

When Vinci | Hamp Architects Inc., a full-service architectural practice based in Chicago, approached Caron Custom Homes about their interest in building a client’s modest, low-maintenance home on a unique property, Caron said his attention was sparked immediately. Caron noted it was the level of quality showcased in a couple of the firm’s more traditional homes in the area that led the architectural practice to be comfortable partnering with them.

“We looked at a couple traditional homes and what they noticed first was the quality level is exactly what they were looking for, despite the design differences,” Caron said. “It was great; it was a new firm that I had never worked with before and, to me, it’s a big pat on the back that you are doing something right when you invite someone else to critique you and it’s a positive thing. You feel good that you are heading in the right direction.”

Vinci | Hamp Architects, as a firm, is dedicated to improving the built environment

through preservation of historic work and creating new buildings that are straightforward expressions of function, structure and materials. Led by John Vinci, FAIA—who has been principal of his own firms since 1969 and known for work like the Louis Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park—and Philip Hamp, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, who joined Vinci in 1980 and formed Vinci | Hamp Architects in 1995— Vinci | Hamp Architects works with residential, preservation, museums, and other institutional clients and has been recognized with an AIA National Honor Award in 2007 and 2014. Backed by a team of principal architects, associates, and designers, the firm has developed a robust portfolio of restoration and new design work, such as at the Illinois State Capital, Art Institute of Chicago, Henry Ford Museum, Chicago Tribune Tower, Rothko Pavilion at Portland Art Museum, and diverse residential styles.

The site

For this particular project, located in southwest Michigan, the client not only wanted to build a home of modern inspiration set within the timbers and designated wetlands of the site, but also maintain the natural resources of the property. Defined by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy—formerly the Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ—as land featuring the presence of water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support wetland vegeta-

tion or quality life, wetlands provide a number of benefits to the surrounding ecosystem, such as flood and storm control, wildlife habitat, erosion control, and serve as a biological and chemical oxidation basin.

“This was an eight-acre parcel that had designated wetlands inside of it and that is always a tougher area that we need to make sure we follow through with the [EGLE] and that we are not disturbing any of those areas,” Caron said. “The homeowner was also doing some forestry work with different arbors, trying to make sure that the property was maintained—which it hadn’t been maintained well from a forestry perspective up until he purchased it—and wetlands were part of that.”

With tight constraints as to where to position the home on the lot while adhering to both forestry and wetland regulations, Caron noted the team had to shift the location of the buildable area and snake the driveway through the landscape while navigating challenges of the ground itself since it was relatively soft in a wetland area. The solution was to install geoweb materials in for the base driveway until it was solid, and to site the home on an elevated ridge to allow for privacy from the road and views of the nearby pond.

The retreat

Nestled amid the timbers and natural vegetation of the site, this modern-lined, contemporary home is defined by its flat rooflines, low-profile presence, and exterior of rich, charred finish. There is an intentional relationship to its environment as indoor-out-

door boundaries dissolve through the use of screened porches, glasswork providing sightlines through the home, and natural materials layered on the interior like metal, concrete, and wood. Its layout is intuitive in design as one moves from master suite and small screened porch complete with skylight through the kitchen, dining, and communal living areas to a secondary bedroom and large, screened porch located at the other end of the home. The Shou Sugi Ban exterior finish, based on the traditional Japanese method of wood preservation known as yakisugi, speaks to a centuries-long-held history and architectural detail that adds bold contrast to its interior palette and a durable, sustainable element to the function of the home.

“The exterior finish of the home is a Shou Sugi Ban siding, which is a charred siding that we ordered and is very unique to work with. There is a high level of detail with how it was installed and how it was drawn to be installed onsite,” Caron said. “You had to have your best woodworking involved to do it. All of the outside corners are mitered, all of the posts like on the porches are mitered, and with charred material, you are dealing with something that is very imperfect and yet you are trying to create perfection, so it was a huge challenge and yet turned out fantastic.”

Caron also said one of the most unique things about the home is when standing in the great room, it feels like one is part of the outdoor landscape since the way the space was designed with a post and beam structure that carry across the ceiling and cantilever from the building to protect entries and floorto-ceiling windows in the living room, draws the eye outward.

“It gives you a feeling of being drawn out into that nature. There have been different times walking through the home that you will have wildlife—deer, birds—come right up by the windows,” Caron said. “There are also screened porches that are on two different ends of the home, fully screened, but large spaces, and very open. You are always feeling like you are part of nature. It is very peaceful and just a very peaceful setting.”

Caron Custom Homes also provided interior woodworking in custom shelving and cabinetry, sourced a Holiday Kitchens—a Rice

Lake, Wisconsin custom cabinet manufacturer—furnishing for the kitchen, and worked with a local fabrication company, Manning Enterprises Inc. in Paw Paw, Michigan to create desk supports and railings for the project.

The experience

With the natural landscape serving as vibrant background to an interior of gypsum board walls and ceilings and radiant-heated polished concrete floors, this woodland retreat of modern inspiration is built on the details and an exacting process, and for Caron, working with Vinci | Hamp Architects was a great experience.

“It was a really nice project to work with Vinci | Hamp on and, similar to other architects, they were very involved with selections, with design details, and with every feature of the home. Everything was broken down, a lot of cross-section views, a lot of additional markups and writeups on the plan, they wanted every detail to be thought of and to be executed well. Working with them closely is really the only way to build a home like that,” Caron said.

“I like the additional design that goes into certain homes. I like working with people directly. I’m good at relaxing people from a moment of worry, so I think that helps me be very good at what I do, because this is a high-tension job. There are always a lot of stressful moments, but how you work with people—is it stressful all the time or are you good at having options for people and talking about what works and what doesn’t work and keeping things calm—is important,” Caron added.