An Iowa couple used the earth around them to build a small home that is powered by the sun

Mike Kilen | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Fairfield couple hand builds home from the land Susan Walch and John Freeberg used material from their woods to build an all natural home.

FAIRFIELD, Iowa — The house is made of soil, timber, straw and rock that John Freeberg and Susan Walch gathered on their land and assembled over the last six years. It is powered by the sun and its water pumped from a pond.

Sitting atop a wave of meadow near Fairfield, the home is an expression of art from the landscape and connection to curious community members who often drive down a gravel country lane to see it.

“People come here and they don’t want to leave. They say it makes them feel good,” Walch said. “This is heaven. We never want to leave.”

Their 1,100 square-foot home is featured in the new book “Small Homes: The Right Size,” which showcases dwellings between 500 and 1,200 square feet.

Small homes haven’t become a trend like tiny homes, usually fewer than 400 square feet, which people love because they are easy to understand, said Lloyd Kahn, the book’s editor from Shelter Publications in Bolinas, Calif.

“But small homes suit people’s needs if they think about it,” he said. “It’s like Goldilocks. It’s not too big and not too small.”

The median square footage of new homes built in the U.S. has steadily climbed from 1,523 in 1973 to 2,422 in 2016, according to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau. But data also showed that people are thinking smaller when they build their own home. The percentage of homes under 1,400 square feet built by owners has increased to 25 percent, up from 15 percent in 1999. (Only 10 percent of contractor-built homes were that size in 2016).

Freeberg and Walch don’t shout from the meadow top about the value of building small and off-the-grid. Yet what they pulled together from around them was almost like advanced fort building for adults.

The walls are made of straw from the land, coated with its clay. The roof is earthen and grows sedum. Whole shagbark hickory trees were hauled from their nearby timber, debarked and used for a great room barrel vaulted ceiling. Scrap ends of limestone from Stone City make up the hearth and a wide path from the cozy front porch to the back screened-in porch. The rest of the floor is clay from their land, treated with oils.

Odds and ends appear throughout the home, from a kitchen breakfast bar made of a maple tree rescued from the Skunk River to old barn wood or wood posts from neighbors. A chicken coop is part of the bedroom décor.

“We’re dumpster divers. You wouldn’t believe what people throw away,” Walch said.

The partners of 12 years also didn’t lecture on green living during a recent visit, hesitating when asked about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement the day before.

“We don’t have TV, so I didn’t really follow it,” Freeberg said. “I just have my little piece of creation here.”

Freeberg, 67, and Walch, 61, may have built a model for battling climate change, but their love of art, nature and practicality fueled its design.

Both came to Fairfield to practice Transcendental Meditation, which attracts people from all over the world to this southeast Iowa community of 9,500, home to Maharishi School of Management. Freeberg came from Wisconsin in 1982 and Walch from Connecticut in the 1970s.

They both work on land contracts for the wind energy industry. In the years after they got together in 2005, they began looking for a spot to build a home.

They found the perfect land near Cedar Creek, 54 acres with timber stands, a hilltop meadow perfect for building. The surrounding fields hadn’t grown row crops in 15 years.

Their FarmHouse at Hickory Highlands started to take shape. They researched online and attended educational seminars on natural building. The construction started to form based on land around them.

The nearby pond only drains from four acres of protected land so they were confident they could use the water with a basic filter.

“You’re drinking it right now,” said Freeberg, pointing to the hibiscus tea he shared.

He said the water has been tested and holds few nitrates, a problem in most Iowa waters because of drainage from the land. He set up a pump and piped the water to his home. The critters who live on the farm, including Zebu cattle, also drink it.

The method to power the home was a practical financial decision.

They realized running power lines to the home would cost $15,000, but if they installed their own solar array, it would cost the same. The system's 48-volt battery storage system does the trick most days if the sun is shining. In the winter, they light a wood stove for heat to assist the sun’s warmth coming in from a huge south-facing widow.

They counter the cloudy winter days with common sense, flipping off the refrigerator for a day, Walch said. “And you learn to not vacuum in the morning.”

Living in the home the past two years has connected them to the cycles of nature. Not many know, Walch said, that there were three weeks without sun in December.

Sometimes, they feel like they are outside, while sitting inside. The design emerged from building traditions of Norsemen, Druids, ancient Pueblo and Mound Builders.

A curved, wing-like fascia that is built from thick slabs of a locust tree welcomes visitors at the entrance. Walking across the adobe floors of clay, sand and cow manure feels firm, but not hard, like wood. Sitting in a clay and sand bench seat is surprisingly comfortable, while looking up to the great room beams of debarked hickory curved to the shape of the sky.

The kitchen cabinets are hickory harvested from the woods.

A “tree spirit” survives in the home, the couple says, because they were unharmed by the ripping of the mill. The large center window lets in a flood of natural light.

“The inside and outside are connected,” Walch said. “You never feel closed in.”

The work of these home artists is everywhere.

Freeberg was busy on this day cutting flowing curves on cedar shingles for the north wall, from invasive cedar trees pulled out of nearby ditches.

Even a privacy half-wall flanking the bathroom toilet is art of the land, a flowing colorful piece that Walch made from willow, mud, cattail fiber and flaxseed.

Some of the art on the walls comes from local artists as a trade for other materials or labor, such aspainted colorful Tibetan clouds on the exterior eaves.

Countless hours of labor every day shaped the home, its surrounding gardens and patios, but Freeberg said the financial cost is too difficult to calculate. They bought trusses from the lumberyard and other materials, but largely the home was pulled together from the land around.

It's a home always in progress. There are more shingles to install and stones to lay for a patio and other projects. But they have learned to “stay in the joy” of their artistic creation, Walch said. “Live, not just work.”

They share the home with the community with open houses and house concerts. This year’s open house is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., June 17.

“It’s just an easy house to be in,” Freeberg said. “It’s lively but not noisy. It’s settled but not sleepy.”