One couple's Straw Bale Home in Fort Collins, Colorado.

After having lived in standard wood frame houses, an adobe and even a teepee, Sue Jesse and Ken Kerchenfaut's latest home is the last straw.

Seeking some simple country living, the retired school teachers moved from their spacious wood frame house in Fort Collins to 11.5 acres northeast of Fort Collins where they built a 1,200 square foot straw bale house on the prairie with an incredible view of Longs Peak.

"We've had quite a few people come and look at it, but few that have actually gone on a built their own," Sue Jesse said. "Those really interested in it are more the owner-builder types."

Straw bale houses have been around for a century or more, but have never really caught on with homebuilders. After reading extensively and attending several workshops on the subject, the environmental-friendly couple knew they wanted a house of straw.

In 1997, they went to work with the help of a contractor and finished the post-and-beam one-story house the next year. It fit their budget, costing less than $87,000, and their environmental ethic. The 400 bales of straw used as insulation were leftover wheat from the nearby Anheuser-Busch brewery. Much of the wood for framing the house was salvaged from dead Engleman spruce. The flooring is a beautiful maple that formerly served as a racquetball court of a defunct local health club.

Electric baseboard heat is used to warm up the cozy house on frosty mornings but a wood fireplace serves as the main heat source of the energy-efficient house and keeps heating bills to a peak of $50 during the coldest months of winter.

"I like building with local materials," said Sue Jesse, who with Ken has spent summers living in a tepee on property they own above Rustic. "When we lived in the desert (east of San Diego), we had an adobe house that we liked and it fit in with our surroundings. Here, straw is plentiful."

The bales are kept in place by rebar stuck through the bales with ends attached to floor and ceiling supports. Surrounding the bales are exterior walls of stucco cement and interior walls of textured plaster over drywall. The bales create walls 18 inches thick, which helps keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer.

The house originally included a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining area and laundry room. Feeling a little too snug, the couple transformed their garage into a TV room that increased the living space to nearly 1,500 square feet. Plans are for an additional bedroom and bathroom to make guests feel more at home.

"We like small spaces," Ken said. "If you notice when you have people over, they usually congregate in the kitchen area. We looked at the square footage of our other houses that we really used and decided this was enough space for us."

The country living doesn't end at the front door. Ken built a wood arbor from the salvaged Engleman spruce that shades the southwest side of the house from summer sun and frames the picturesque view of Longs Peak. The property blends in with the surrounding countryside with the perimeter of the house replanted with native plants and left wild enough to entice a variety of birds, which the couple enjoys watching from a chair by the wood stove. An organic garden covers another patch of ground and gets tended when Sue isn't busy with the two miniature show donkeys, horse, mule, two dogs and a cat. A horse barn, garage and soon-to-be gardening shed dot the property.

Looking out the window at Longs Peak, Sue Jesse sees a little piece of heaven.

"I can't imagine living in town again; that's my worst nightmare," she said. "This is my dream. When I leave here, it'll be feet first."

Pictures here

Courtesy of the Fort Collins Coloradoan www.coloradoan.com