Jim and Michele Ducharme had a long-standing dream: They wanted a log home. For years, they looked far and wide for the perfect piece of ground to make that goal a reality, only to find that their ultimate destination was a familiar one — quite literally in their own back yard. The land they were destined for, and where their vision for a log home in a serene setting would come to fruition, had been in Michele’s family all along.
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“I never thought I’d be building our dream home on my grandparents’ farmland,” Michele admits. “Though we’ve spent a lot of time there at family events, I never pictured it as a place where we would live. Once my parents floated the idea by us, we went to the property to see if we could envision our home there, and suddenly, everything just seemed to fit together.”
Both Jim and Michele are New Hampshire natives, but their home site lay just across the state line in Maine. When the option to build on this lot became available, the opportunity proved magical.
“The site consists of 25 acres of family land that abuts the Salmon Falls River, which is on the border of Maine and New Hampshire,” explains Jim. “Michele’s family’s history on this property goes back to the 1800s. Both her parents and grandparents have lived here.”
The first steps on the Ducharmes’ log home journey could not have shaped up better. “We have always shared a dream of building one to spend our retirement years together,” comments Jim, Chief Operating Officer at RSA Outseer, a company focused on fraud prevention in digital payment processing and a 20-year veteran of the online security industry. However, Jim concedes that Michele is the CEO of the family, having focused on raising their three children to adulthood. The time has come for both of them to relax.
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“As long as I can remember, I’ve wished the day would come when we would be fortunate enough to live in a log home,” Michele says with a smile. “Something about the rustic feel, the fireplace and the high ceilings makes me feel like we are always at a camp and can have s’mores anytime of the year. It just always feels cozy and like a great place to gather and tell stories.
It’s with a tinge of serendipity that the search for the place that Jim and Michele longed to call home started — literally — at home.
So it begins, the log home journey of a lifetime, on familiar ground that in time would yield everything that was hoped for and even more.
Next Installment
Join us as we navigate the Ducharmes’ design process with their team at Coventry Log Homes.
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