Chris Griese and Vicki Kappus weren’t sure what to do after a lightning strike destroyed their 1901 farmhouse in Grant seven years ago.

Constructing on the inspiration of the old house didn’t make sense, since the property on 118th Street North is in a flood plain, with setbacks and restrictions severely limiting the buildable area.

Enter architect Rosemary McMonigal.

McMonigal, principal of Minneapolis-based McMonigal Architects, spent hours walking the positioning, working on a plan to construct a brand new house while saving as many trees as possible and benefiting from the agricultural setting overlooking a marsh.

“The location is considered one of a form with the marsh here,” McMonigal said during a tour of the home on Thursday. “I cannot imagine how beautiful it’s. To me, because I continue to exist a wetland, it’s equally as beautiful as a lake. In Minnesota, everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s not a lake, it’s a marsh.’ But I believe it’s nearly as good or higher since the bird life with a marsh is just so wealthy.”

The brand new house, which sits as much as eight feet higher above grade than the previous house, features an open floor plan and is stuffed with light. There are windows on all 4 sides of the home – a design element that might be realized once McMonigal persuaded the couple to construct a detached garage.

“We gained a view from all these rooms, versus partitioning them off,” Griese said. “Our old house had partitioned-off rooms, narrow hallways, small windows. Every little thing was just a little space.”

Constructing an unattached garage was key, McMonigal said, because that allowed water to flow between the garage and the home to the adjoining marsh.

Due to the potential for flooding, the solar-powered home is a slab on grade with no basement. The exposed concrete slab has a stained finish, provides a passive-solar heat sink, and has in-floor heat.

“Rosemary was like, ‘Forget a couple of basement. The marsh is at all times attempting to invade it anyway,’” Griese said. “The basement was always flooding. The sump pump was running on a regular basis, even within the winter.”

McMonigal worked closely with officials from Grant, Washington County, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the surveyor to exactly locate FEMA flood lines and the wetland-delineation zone. The home is just at the sting of the protected zone and is raised higher to scale back the chance of flooding and improve views over the marsh.

“Now we will see the marsh,” Kappus said. “Before when the cattails grew up, it was like being in a cornfield. You couldn’t really see anything, and, truthfully, the garage really blocked the perfect view.”

‘Your own home is burning to the bottom’

Griese, who’s the eastern U.S. sales manager for Sake Story, a sake importing company, and Kappus, a substitute teacher, moved to Grant in 1990 from West St. Paul. The couple had a 2 ½ 12 months old, and Kappus was pregnant with their second child.

“We decided we wanted just a little more room, and we happened to see a list within the newspaper,” Kappus said. “Chris grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, and the thought of some property was really appealing to him.”

The couple put in a suggestion below the asking price “considering that they wouldn’t take it,” she said. “They called the subsequent day. … At that time, I didn’t even know if there was a washer in the home. I felt like I had barely checked out it.”

The location is surrounded by farmers and artists. Artist Kami Mendlik lives on one side of them; artists Doug and Angie Malin continue to exist the opposite side.

In 2016, Kappus and the couple’s daughter, Sydney, were in Chicago and Griese was out grocery shopping when Mendlik called Griese to report the hearth. “I used to be at Kowalski’s buying a roast chicken,” he said. “Kami called and said, ‘Chris you’d higher get home. Your own home is burning to the bottom.’ Those were her exact words.”

Griese got in his automobile and raced back to the home. “I could see the plume of smoke from three miles away,” he said. “I got here racing across the corner. I came before the hearth department did.”

The home, which had huge picket beams and cedar on the inside and outside, “just went up like a Roman candle,” he said.

Some features and furniture from the unique house might be saved. A picket door from their bedroom was salvaged. An Oriental rug, a family heirloom from Griese’s side of the family, had recently been cleaned and was still rolled up and wrapped in plastic in an area that escaped water damage. Art glass windows, created by Griese, were saved from the hearth and now hold a spot of prominence within the dining room and owners’ bedroom.

A secretary in Kappus’s office didn’t burn, but “the outline of whatever was on the highest of it continues to be there,” Kappus said. “Those sorts of things just amazed me once I saw that – just how much that smoke and blackness penetrated.”

Modern touches

The brand new home is 2,375 square feet, about 1,000 square feet smaller than the unique house. It was designed with most living space on the primary floor, so Griese and Kappus can “age-in-place.” “We don’t really want to go up and down in any respect,” he said.

The lounge contains a modern woodburning stove that rotates 90 degrees to face either the dining or living spaces. McMonigal talked the couple out of “an enormous gas fireplace feature,” Kappus said.

“People often place a hearth on an inside wall, but we wanted them to see the view of the marsh, so we combined the view and the hearth element on one side,” McMonigal said. “They produce loads of wood branches around here to burn.”

Just off the lounge is a screened porch that anchors the northwest corner of the home and takes full advantage of views to the marsh. A hammock and comfy furniture make it a favourite hangout spot when the weather is nice.

“We never had a screened-in porch before,” Kappus said.

“All we had were mosquitoes,” Griese joked.

“We use this rather a lot,” she said. “It’s sad when we now have to shut the door for the winter.”

The smaller second floor features a loft area, bedroom, bathroom, built-in bed alcove and storage. When the couple asked their children, Stuart Griese, 33, and Sydney Griese, 30, what elements they desired to be included in the brand new house, “each of them remembered the loft within the old house, and so they desired to have a loft area,” Kappus said. “That was essential. We still consider this as their home.”

Architect’s guidance

Griese and Kappus found McMonigal through their friends Becky and Andy Braden; Andy Braden was the founding father of Braden Construction in Stillwater.

“Becky, having worked on her home with Rosemary, said, ‘Rosemary will keep you entering into a straight line. I didn’t realize how helpful that was,’” Kappus said.

After the hearth, the couple lived with the Bradens for 2 weeks and the Malins for 2 weeks before moving to 2 different condos in St. Paul’s Summit University neighborhood for 2 years while their recent house was in design and construction.

“To see this and consider just walking away from it – cleansing it up and selling it, it just didn’t seem fair,” Kappus said. “It didn’t seem fair to what we had. It didn’t seem fair to the neighbors. It will have been incorrect to try this.”

“We love life out here,” Griese said.

Living in a condo in St. Paul gave the couple a number of ideas of what they wanted in the brand new house, including a walk-in shower with side sprays within the owners’ bathroom.

“A brand new home is so great,” Griese said. “You don’t must always fix stuff.”

The home’s exterior features an upper band of corrugated steel, designed to reflect the sky, while the earthen color of the lower band of cedar siding ties the structure to the land, McMonigal said. The inside contains a mixture of woods, metal and concrete, together with a variety of ceiling heights.

The roof of the home was designed to optimize exposure for the roof-mounted solar panels, and McMonigal insisted that the home include a big mechanical room/laundry room. “With solar you wish more things – there’s an additional meter and panels,” she said.

“We had thought the front of the home would just be a porch,” Griese said. “She’s, like, ‘What are you going to do with a big porch? You simply come and go.’”

As a substitute, the trio compromised on a landing outside the east door where the couple could put their gas grill. Griese jokes that the couple “needed a spot to cook bratwursts.”

Just under the landing is a big patio area that features a pizza oven that was built by Griese.

“This side of the home is our social side,” he said. “It’s really protected, and you possibly can be out here just about on a regular basis. The west side may be very private. It’s a teeny little porch, and we now have tea and breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner on the market.”

Lightning strikes twice

Six months after Griese and Kappus moved into the brand new house, lightning struck again. It hit their tall Douglas fir tree and leapt over to the home, starting a fireplace that damaged controls, electronics and among the interior. The 2019 fire “burned a hole within the gas supply line which, fortunately, was burning in a steel-lined box,” Griese said. “It could burn away, but it surely wasn’t going to burn the home down.”

The couple say they hope to stay in the home for a long time to come back.

“It’s a house now,” Griese said. “It looks like where we’re speculated to live.”

AIA MN Homes by Architects Tour

• When: 10 a.m. to five p.m. Saturday and Sunday
• Cost: $25 upfront or $35 through the tour; $10 for the virtual-only tour experience; $10 for college kids and youngsters 6 and older; children 5 and under are free
• House No. 13: Chris Griese and Vicky Kappus’ house at 10510 118th St. N., Grant.
• Details: All homes are designed by registered members of the American Institute of Architects Minnesota. Ten of the homes will likely be available for in-person visits and 4 may be toured virtually. Visitors may have a likelihood to satisfy the lead architects and their design teams.
• Info: www.homesbyarchitects.org