How “Las Manos” came to be.

A long time ago, in a ski-town far, far away, Colleen and William dreamt of a wonderful home in the sunny Upper Arkansas Valley near Buena Vista. We found the perfect parcel of land in 1999 and spent a lot of time camping on the land. We set off on several trips to Arizona, California and other parts of Colorado, looking at environmentally friendly building styles, and helping new-found friends build their dream homes too. Once we settled on a straw-bale home (for its super insulation and environmental advantages), we bought a simple computer program that allowed us to make a drawing of our dream home.

In the spring of 2001, we had a truck load of bales from Alamosa, Colorado delivered…and the challenge was to find out if the load would fit through the Midland Steam Train Tunnels just south of the house….and they did. The bales sat for 6 months while the plans were drawn up by our Architect Pamm McFadden , and approved. During that time we attended a strawbale building school at the Canelo Project in Arizona The first thing we did in May 2001 was to build a solar panel array and a small building to house the batteries. From then on, all of the power to build and run the house has come from the sun. We then built the wooden frame (post and beam) to support the bales and the roof.

Once the frame was completed we had a “ baling weekend” just like the old barn-raisings, and friends both old and new came to help….we even used a pulley system to get the bales up to the second floor. Once the bales were in place between the posts, we installed the windows and sealed them up with bituthene, metal lath, stucco wire and lots of caulk. After the windows and door frame were very carefully detailed, the next step was stucco. Once again friends arrived for a fun-filled working weekend. The stucco was sprayed on several inches thick, and blown right onto the bales. Then the friends troweled the coats smooth…one new friend and her daughter came all the way from Minnesota, where they have since completed their own straw bale house.

One of the more hurried moments occurred when Colleen was finishing up creating a handmade sun relief on the front wall, and was not quite complete when Tony came around the corner with his stucco gun roaring. Fortunately the results came out perfectly.

With the outside complete and the weather sealed out, we started on the interior. Using the native clays and soil from the front of the house, we created beautiful adobe walls and floors that caused one visitor to comment “this is like living inside a sculpture.” With over 45 tons of adobe on the walls and floors, the house retains heat wonderfully in the winter and remains cool in the summer’s heat. When needed, the in-floor radiant heating tubes provide back-up to the passive effects of the sun. In this phase as well, friends traveled great distances to help with skills and strength and camaraderie.

Locally harvested logs were used to create a porch (ramada) around the entire house both for sun and rain shading. Local logs were also hand-crafted into an eight-pointed star of ceiling beams for the 19 foot high ceiling of the great room. One of the biggest design/build challenges was creating a tall entrance archway into the circular great room. We all scratched our heads over that, and thanked our engineer David Stevens for his design.

As we entered the final stages we hired a number of excellent local craftsmen to help with wood trim, floors, walls and tile work…thanks to you all.

Most recently we completed the kitchen area with cabinet doors/drawer fronts made from locally harvested blue-stain pine, and complemented them with hand poured concrete counter tops which Colleen faux-finished to match her 1927 QuickMeal gas range.

We would be delighted to tell you more about the building of Las Manos. Call, email, or best of all, come and visit.