Flying high

There’s something special about the site of this Douglas fir frame that you would not know from the photo: the house is in an airpark, which is a development of house lots around a runway, allowing the homeowners to fly directly to and from their homes. We built a timber frame house in an airpark in Arizona, but this airpark on Cape Cod is the only one in Massachusetts.

The house will have an adjacent hanger for the owner’s plane.  From the street, the houses could be in any residential neighborhood on the Cape because aircraft traffic is limited to grassy taxiways behind the houses that the homeowners use to get their planes from their hangers to the runway for take off—and back to the hanger at the end of the trip.

This couple often fold up their bikes and load them into their Cessna 172 four-seater to provide ground transportation when they arrive at their destination. They have identified attractions near airports all over the New England and enjoy flying to a beach in Martha’s Vineyard or to the Goodspeed Opera House on the Connecticut River, but they have also flown as far as Montana.

Another special feature of this house is triple hammer beam trusses—but that’s for another day. We will post some interior shots of the house when it’s completed.