Parade home inspired by rural setting

Up a newly laid crushed rock driveway and through an archway opening made in a treeline sits one of Chippewa Valley's newest farmhouses.

Though surrounded by rented farm fields, owners of the new home only plan to plant what will grow in their backyard garden, making the home agriculturally related in appearance but not really in practice.

Builder and owner Lance Brunkow said he and his wife, Gaye, wanted a house that drew inspiration from classic farmhouses but had all the modern touches desired by them and their three teenage children.

"We wanted to do something that fit in," said Lance Brunkow, owner of Brunkow Builders. "We tried to be fairly authentic, but with new products."

The new house fits surprisingly well with the surrounding farms just south of Eau Claire's city limits.

Doors on the three-stall detached workshop and garage appear to be made of wood and steel, salvaged from an old carriage house. But the doors roll up like a standard modern garage door.

While a wood-burning stone fireplace in the living room can be used to warm the main floor, the home is primarily heated using a geothermal system, a network of buried pipes that draws heat from the earth.

Classic white siding running along the outside of the house was laid on top of an inch of foam insulation. Brunkow used SmartSide, a composite material offering the strength, low maintenance, moisture resistance and aesthetic benefits of cement siding, but with easier installation and less weight.

The house is one of 16 on the 38th annual Chippewa Valley Parade of Homes, which starts next weekend.

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Parade home inspired by rural setting