A bit of Wisconsin’s North Woods will be exported to Japan this summer.
Frontier Builders Inc., a Land O’Lakes-based company that builds hand-crafted log homes in a variety of styles, is working on a 1,850-square-foot white pine home to be shipped to Japan in July.
“There is quite a large market for American log homes in Japan,” said Jerry Wait, owner of Frontier. The location of West Coast log builders has made it easier for them to ship to Japan for years, but Frontier plans to start competing with its first shipment, Wait said.
“White pine is considered something of an exotic wood in Japan,” he said. “They just love wood over there. They especially like white pine because it is so difficult for them to get. It carries a status similar to that of a Swiss watch.
“They wanted the best wood that can be had, and that’s what we’re delivering.”
The home is being built at Frontier’s Wisconsin operation.
The logs will be numbered and placed in steel shipping containers, then trucked to the West Coast and placed on a cargo ship for the three-week journey across the Pacific Ocean, Wait said.
The home will be reassembled by Japanese workers, supervised by a Frontier project manager, he said.
“This is an American-style log building, but it does have a number of unique features,” Wait said.
The building has six interior log walls dividing its rooms, a fireplace, 12-foot high walls, and American doors and windows. He said the home will be attached to a traditional Japanese home, to mix the two influences.
Wait said the home was designed by a Chicago architect who is originally from Japan. Because Frontier’s client does not speak English, the architect also has acted as a translator between the builder and log home buyer.
“The language barrier has made the project more interesting,” Wait said. “It does tend to slow things down somewhat, but we have made an allowance for that in our construction timetable.”
Frontier has shipped homes to about 10 states, with about 75 percent of its log homes built for Wisconsin residents. Log home shells usually range in cost from $30 per square foot to more than $200 per square foot, depending on amenities and “how fancy we get with the log work,” Wait said.
The company uses logs from 16 to 20 inches in diameter at the butt, with tops being a minimum of about 10 inches. The logs range in length from 32 to 50 feet and weigh between 1,000 and 4,000 pounds each.
