VICTOR – Construction on the new Sperry Chalet has begun, nearly 200 miles south of the chalet’s location at Pioneer Log Home Company in Victor.
“It’s really exiting. When we realized that we had this opportunity we were all really eager to participate and we were very fortunate Dick Anderson construction chose us to be one of the partners,” said Pioneer Log Home Director of Sales Rob Ridgway.
The obvious joke to make here is that these aren’t your average Lincoln Logs, but really these aren’t your average logs, period.
“We have crafted the second floor joists, which is the ceiling of the first floor and we were waiting for the steel to show up that will stiffen up the entire structure and make it last for a long time,” Ridgway said.
These steel-reinforced logs are at the request of project engineers and are aimed to make a more stable structure yearround.
“The new system that’s being built now adheres to new engineering standards," he said. "It’s safe. It’s designed for commercial codes. It’s designed as a commercial building and it will last for generations to come.".
It’s a special project with unique challenges, but this construction crew is prepared for the task at hand and has the experience and expertise to pull it off.
"This crew is the tops nobody could do this but these guys in my opinion. They are crafting everything exactly. Every piece of wood fits and go together for onsite construction management," Ridgway said.
Most of the fabrication work will be done in Victor, but at some point something is going to have to get these 400-pound logs up into the air and to their resting place in Glacier National Park.
"The helicopter has a load limit on what they can lift and swing into place, obviously, and these pieces are very heavy with these three quarter inch thick steel bars that are placed in a lot of the structural members. So we are packaging them up into smaller pieces, bundles of about 1000 per load."
This means that Sperry Chalet will, essentially, be built about a half-ton at a time.
