Montana-made log homes gain popularity

MISSOULA, Mont. — A housing option that saw decline following the Great Recession is coming back, and industry leaders in Montana say it will give buyers a better price than traditionally built homes.

As lumber prices have skyrocketed, Montana Custom Log Homes tells us it can produce modest homes for around $275 per square foot, lower than some conventional new homes.

Ken Hilton is a master at smoothing timber for log homes. His 23 years of experience shows in the finish, but in 2008, this art, and the log home industry was almost gone for good, when the nation's housing bubble burst.

"For all intensive purpouses, it was dead," Hilton said.

That broke the supply chain, and then architectural tastes changed once people started building again.

"When some of these areas started coming back, like Big Sky and some of the more affluent and developed areas in the west, the architecture changed," said Marty Smorowski of Montana Custom Log Homes. "They got away from log construction and went to mountain modern. It's glass and timber and a whole different architectural look. "

Manufacturers mainly use timber beatles started infesting around the 1970's.

"We're using dead, staning timber," said Art Turner of Montana Custom Log Homes. "It literally sits in the woods as fuel for a fire. We're harvesting that, bringing it in and turning it into a real product."

Using the timber reduces the risk of fire.

"There's some areas where the beattle-kill is so extensive, if it were to ever catch on fire, you'd see it from the moon," Smorowski said.

Now, with the pandemic, plus skyrocketing lumber prices, orders from all areas and demographics flood log home manufacturers.

"What we're seeing right now is the price of lumber drastically increasing," Turner said. "The pandemic started. People have come to us in the last year or so, with a planned, conventional, stick-framed home. We've priced it in a log home and it's actually come out with less money to build that structure out of a log package. Our logs have not gone up with inflation, like everything else has. Our raw material input has remained constant. That allows us to remain constant in our prices. It's a better value at this point... This product is a more affordable product too. That opens up the market to a broader range of customer than the higher-end custom homes we used to see back in the 80's and 90's."

Most operations do their finishing by machine, but Kenny Hilton is one of the few craftsmen who still do it by hand.

"Youy need to do it by hand, to get around the knots," Hilton said. "If you've got something going around the knots, you can get a smooth edge."

Montana Custom Log Homes now estimates it can get a milled log home to you, in about 3 to 6 months.