A Mountain Hideaway: Built from the ground up, a family retreat in Maggie Valley showcases a rustic industrial style

Some fifteen years ago, as they cozied around a small heater inside a M*A*S*H-style Korean War tent from the army surplus, Scott and Lu Glaubitz dreamed of the retreat they would one day build on this spot along Chestnut Ridge in Maggie Valley. The two make frequent hiking stops in Western North Carolina as they journey between a primary residence in Florida and their farm in southern Minnesota. Happening upon this undeveloped acreage, they fell in love. The pair, who have ten grandchildren between four daughters, envisioned “a little Grumbleknot,” a snug hideaway just large enough to “plunk the kids down,” says Lu, explaining that the name is a reminder that, “there’s no grumbling once you come through these doors.” (The campers later found a mischief of mice snuggled into their warm tent—perhaps a sign of the togetherness this site could inspire?) But first things first: a road.

The Groundwork

When constructing an energy-efficient home on an untamed mountaintop at a 5,200-foot elevation, collaboration from skilled professionals of every stripe is essential. The first of the sure-handed team of engineers, designers, and craftsmen that Scott and Lu assembled was Excavation Unlimited owner Chris Weatherman. To give access to the remote site, he carved roughly 3.5 miles of inclined road from an old mountain trail, saving rocks and boulders for eventual use in a stone patio wall. “He’s an artist on a backhoe,” says Scott.

This can-do couple of farmers value determination and hard work. Individually, Scott, a civil engineer, appreciates functionality and precision, while Lu, an antiques collector, admires objects with beauty and history (like the grain bag she found in Cashiers and stashed for a decade before transforming it into Grumbleknot’s entry hall light fixture). “Together, they form two halves of a whole,” observes interior designer Cherie Thompson, whom the Glaubitzes first hired 20 years ago for their Florida home, which is dressed in a traditional farmhouse style.

Smooth Operators

In a departure from their primary residence, “I really wanted this house to be clean and neutral,” says Lu, who asked Thompson for an industrial modern aesthetic that would allow the surrounding environment to shine. “My job was to invite that beautiful view into the home and blend it with the living space,” explains the interior designer. To that end, the team incorporated an abundance of raw materials, including natural wood, unpainted concrete, local stone, and natural fibers. They also selected light fixtures that wouldn’t impede the view, such as the Hubbardton Forge “Divergence” pendants in the great room and WAC Lighting’s “E=MC2” pendant above the kitchen island.

For his part, residential designer Alex Mitz used plenty of southern-facing windows and a unique second-level main entry to showcase the home’s environs. “Our goal was for people to walk in the front door and look out as opposed to up,” says the president of Florida-based Mitz Design Group. Working within the topography lines mapped by Scott’s civil engineering company, Mitz planned for the 3,300-square-foot home to nestle into a natural flat spot hunkered just below the ridgeline. The resulting structure appears moderate in size upon approach and then unfurls some 30 feet downhill, opening to distant views of Maggie Valley’s Ghost Town in the Sky. Its snug mountainside fit also forms a slight buffer from the wind—a great advantage in this 150mph wind zone that called for hurricane-strength windows.

For the sake of functionality, Mitz also established a garage entryway accessible via a lower driveway. A long hall, complete with a rolling ladder along a clerestory window wall, leads to a butlers pantry that then opens onto Lu’s dream kitchen. The bright-eyed owner had spied the sleek design in a magazine, and Thompson knew just where to find it, “so away we went,” remembers Lu. Their destination? South Florida’s DCOTA (Design Center of the Americas) for a visit to the Snaidero showroom. The Italian distributor tailors modern laminate cabinetry to a client’s custom specifications, yielding a functionally streamlined kitchen. Installed with Cambria “Fieldstone” quartz counters and a matching backsplash (chosen for the manufacturer’s Minnesota roots), “the cabinets look like they’re floating in space,” beams Lu.

Concrete Vision

The job of bringing to life the combined visions of the Glaubitzes, Mitz, and Thompson fell to general contractor Andy Quigley of Quigley Construction. “This was a complicated project that required a builder skilled at working in a mountain environment,” says Thompson. Besides contending with the wilderness, high-altitude weather extremes, and a global pandemic, the trickiest part as Quigley saw it was the abundance of concrete, from an engineered foundation to insulated walls. “The exterior retaining wall was made of poured concrete with a rock veneer of Tennessee flat stone and Fines Creek rock from a tributary of the Pigeon River. The interior concrete walls were embossed with impressions of rough-sewn lumber. And sandwiched between the two was rigid insulation,” he explains.

The Glaubitzes originally envisioned concrete floors, as well, but Thompson worried that the material would be uncomfortable to walk on and could eventually crack (a lesson gleaned while earning her building technology degree). So they opted instead for a high-traffic vinyl tile by Karndean called “Colorado” that mimics the look of concrete but features a heavy-duty rubberized texture. The product also allowed for the inclusion of a Schluter electric floor warming system, a perk when temperatures dip.

“Concrete has what you call high thermal mass, meaning it retains warmth long after the heat source is extinguished,” explains Quigley. With that understanding, the team, guided by Florida-based structural engineer Michael Kalajian, also established a concrete alcove in which to house Scott’s must-have, a wood-burning soapstone stove from HearthStone. “Since the stove wasn’t very big but would be in a large, two-story room, we needed to set the stage for a rather small element,” notes Thompson, who ultimately designed a modern riff on the English inglenook. Thanks to metal sheeting on the underside of the niche, heat is reflected into the room and keeps the home warm even in the harshest of mountaintop winters.

Living the Dream

Quigley is in the midst of building a barn to house the cab tractor that the Glaubitzes purchased to plow themselves out of the snow. “We’re not afraid to come up here during the winter and get snowed in,” says Lu, noting that she and Scott take care of the property entirely on their own. “I’m the park ranger,” she muses. “I mow, and he cuts wood.” They also drive with a chainsaw to cut through any felled trees they happen upon while navigating the road to Grumbleknot.

“This type of living would scare a lot of people,” says Scott. “We’re pretty isolated, but we wanted it that way,” continues Lu. “I guess that’s the farmer in us.” Of course, with the two-bedroom, two-bath Grumbleknot complete, the Glaubitzes now have space to host their sizable family, with kids and grandkids bunking in the guest bedroom, on an upstairs sofa bed, up in the barn’s sleeping loft, and inside a small cabin built in the interim before construction of the main house. But most of the time, “we’re just up here with the elk as our neighbors,” including one particularly curious cow who has eaten an outdoor light fixture, punctured through screens, even broken one of the Kingsley Bate patio chairs. Lu just chuckles. “We call her nosy Nancy.”

Resources

Cherie Thompson Design & Build
601 21st St., Ste. 300, Vero Beach, FL
560 Main St, Savannah, TN
234 Charlotte St., St. Augustine, FL
(772) 532-4032, (731) 420-7007, (904) 424-9880; www.ctinteriors.com

Design Center of the Americas (DCOTA)
1855 Griffin Rd., Dania Beach, FL 
(954) 920-7997; www.dcota.com

Hubbardton Forge
154 Route 30 S, Castleton, VT
(888) 826-4766; www.hubbardtonforge.com

Kingsley Bate
7200 Gateway Ct., Manassas, VA
(703) 361-7000; www.kingsleybate.com

Mitz Design Group
Melbourne, FL
@mitz_design_group
Facebook: Mitz Design Group

Quigley Construction
495 Locust Dr., Maggie Valley
(828) 734-0592
Facebook: Quigley Construction