French Flair
With the help of Amish builders, a French couple crafts a unique home in the “alps” of Montana.
By Margaret Foster
If anyone had told Jacques and Patricia Berten that they would leave France, retire in the United States, and live in a log home constructed by Amish builders, they would have suspected that person had been drinking too much Bordeaux. But that’s exactly what happened. Now the French couple is living happily ever after in their custom log home in the mountains of Montana.
Jacques grew up in northern France, where, he says, “Everything is made of bricks or concrete.” “When I was a kid, I remember seeing Fort Laramie in Wyoming,” he adds. “It was made of logs. In France we can’t build anything like that, so you dream of it.” Then, the dreaming became a drawing. “I remember getting up in the middle of the night and drawing a log home,” he says. Settling Down In the 1980s, Jacques and Patricia visited a dude ranch in Montana. They returned the next year, and the next. “When we came here, it was love at first sight,” Jacques says. “When we decided to retire here, it was the best thing we did in our lives.”
Four years ago, the Bertens settled in northwestern Montana, the heart of the state’s Amish country, where many Amish specialize in log-home construction. The couple immediately moved into a log home, but longed to build one of their own. At an Amish auction in 2004, Jacques met Dwayne Keim of North West Log Homes, a six-year-old manufacturer based in Rexford. Jacques, who admired another house that Dwayne built, had found his man. He hopped into Dwayne’s truck and sketched his dream house on the spot.
Find
the rest of this exciting article and more by subscribing
to American
Cowboy magazine...
|
With space-age barstools and custom mosaics on the bar and backsplash, and lights that would fit into any Manhattan club, the Bertens' kitchen stands out aainst the logs. "The kitchen is ultra-modern," Jacques says. "It's and explosion of colors."
The obligitory moose broods over the great rooms's many antiques, collected during Jacques Berten's career as a maritime antiques dealer. "My life is in this hours," he says.
Photographs by Living Images
"When we decided to retire here, it was the best thing we did in our lives."
|
<< BACK
TO MAIN PAGE
|
