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PrintThe House that Brock Built
A new lodge near La Grange is built from reclaimed materials
Greg Wood
(page 1 of 2)
Perhaps Mother Goose can write another poem after she comes and visits the guest lodge that Jerry “Brock” Brockmiller built entirely of reclaimed materials. And, like any goose, she will love the twenty-five-acre lake and two hundred acres of woods and meadows surrounding the new Lodge at Timber Stone Lake, north of Hannibal and near La Grange.
When you first walk into the house, you feel like you are stepping into a lodge nestled deep in the Rocky Mountains. Maybe it’s the overall scale of everything in the house—the huge timbers, the massive fireplace, the way the wood flows from floors to post to timber to ceiling. And yet, the golden-toned wood, the red brick, and the hand-hewn stone deliver the feeling of coziness.
You just feel like curling up on one of the leather couches in front of the fireplace and sitting all day reading a book, looking out the glass wall at the lake view, and then taking a nap. And then maybe a hike.
That’s the whole point of the lodge. It’s really a retreat, soothing comfort for your body and a home for your soul. There’s even a cook for every meal, if desired. You won’t lift a finger, unless perhaps you’re holding a glass of wine. You will easily leave worries behind—no rats allowed—when you’re here in the house that Brock built.
Brock didn’t really intend to build his lodge entirely of reclaimed materials, but once he got started, it became a game that he couldn’t quit. There’s not one square inch of drywall or plaster in the five-thousand-square-foot lodge, which has four king bedrooms and five baths but can sleep twelve comfortably with the use of two additional semi-private queen loft bedrooms.
First he built a lake on some land he had bought, and the plan was to build a small hunting cabin using trees cut from the property. At a class reunion, he learned about a four-story brick building scheduled for demolition in nearby Quincy, Illinois. The building, built in 1888, had most recently served as a lumberyard, and Brock, who was a contractor, had been in the building often. After making a deal for the massive timbers and joists from that building, the small cabin morphed into an all-wood luxury lodge overlooking the large, secluded lake.
Brock began designing his dream lodge with three goals in mind: One, use all the massive timbers; two, lose nothing of their size; and three, use the materials in a way that best displays the girth and age of each timber.
All of the huge beams were re-sawed, planed, and then built into six identical timber bents, or frames. All were fitted and refinished to form the post and beam structure of the lodge. The yellow-pine flooring and the walls and ceiling boards in the lodge came from splitting thick floor joists from that same old building.
Next, Brock learned of another building to be demolished in Quincy, which had been built in the late 1800s as a school or church, perhaps both, but had lately been a part of St. Mary’s Hospital. He made a deal to buy and haul off the foundation stone from that building. He recovered 150 tons of stone that now serve as foundation, fireplace base, retaining walls, and also as an arched alcove for a wood stove in the walkout level. While he was there making sure the stones were not damaged as they were being removed, he saw a few grey-green slate roof tiles lying on the ground and learned the whole roof was covered with them. A builder from Chicago was supposed to buy them but never showed, and the wrecking ball was due the next day.
