Palm Springs Life / Desert Guide / March 2011 / First Days of Graham Residence Construction Successful

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First Days of Graham Residence Construction Successful

Palm Springs-based green builder Blue Sky Homes’ first few days of construction on the Gordon Graham residence in Yucca Valley were off to a great start earlier last week.

On February 14, BSH partner Kurt Christy oversaw a crew of seven workmen (including contractor foreman Chris Ritter of Solterra Development in Palm Springs) who started building early in the morning while the company’s three other principals—David McAdam, Klaus Moser, and Robert Brada—proudly looked on with excited anticipation.

The structural steel columns that will support the home were anchored to their concrete footings in less than 90 minutes. By early afternoon, most of the light-gauge steel floor beams had been bolted to the columns and the frame was beginning to take shape in earnest.  By 11 a.m. of Day Two on Tuesday, the entire frame had been completely erected.

The home’s owner, Canadian Gordon Graham—who commissioned the residence from Blue Sky Homes after seeing the company’s prototype property, designed by Palm Springs’ o2 Architecture, in the pages of the April 2010 issue of Dwell magazine—was jubilant when he arrived on site mid-day on Monday, fresh off a flight from his home near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Graham, who has had a fascination with Southern California since childhood, says the beatific setting of the High Desert is what first fueled his dream of living amidst the staggering rock formations and wild chaparral that dot his ten acres. “To be able to drop a beautiful, modern house made of steel and glass into the middle of all this without disturbing the landscape,” he said, “well, that’s just amazing to me.”

Indeed, since the house will float many feet above the desert floor, suspended by those nine steel columns, a miniscule amount of preparatory earth work was required. A seasonal stream will even flow uninterrupted under the house, which Graham hopes to move into by mid-April. The speed with which Blue Sky Homes can build was also a major selling point for Graham. It will take approximately eight weeks to complete the project, which is a far cry from the 12 months it can routinely take to finish a traditionally constructed home made of wood.

In the next few days of construction, the snap-into-place panels that will create the exterior/interior shell of the home will be installed.  In less than a week, the residence should be weatherproof and ready for interior work.

Visit this site often for further construction updates and in-progress images of Blue Sky Homes’ Graham residence.

To watch a 3-minute clip of the Blue Sky Homes building process in action, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i58E8XpHFus.  For more information on Blue Sky Homes and Blue Sky Building Systems, please visit www.blueskyhomesllc.com.