Yearn to Burn

Luxury Living: Area experts offer tips on how to create the perfect fireplace.

Written By: Lisa Strandberg

Elemental and wild, fire attracts us with its warmth, glow and power. It’s no wonder so many of us want a little piece of it in our homes.

“Want” is the operative word when modern-day homeowners choose a fireplace type and surround style, according to Steve Boegh, owner of Fox Valley Stone and Brick Company, which has showrooms in Neenah and DePere.

“People don’t talk about affordability, they talk about want.” He says, adding that a typical customer’s perspective is, “This is one time around for me. This is my dream home.”

To ensure a homeowner will love the reality of a fireplace as much as his or her dream of it, Boegh advises to shop early. “It’s not just for Christmas anymore,” he says.

Homeowners should determine precisely what they want in a fireplace prior to the design process. The reason? As passionate as a homeowner may become about including a fireplace in a new or existing home, practical considerations come into play, including the ability of a structure to support the weight of a fireplace and its decorative elements.

“The builder needs to know from the homeowner up front if they’re going to add a stone fireplace surround,” says Wess Ripley, vice president of Carved Stone Creations in Kaukauna, which sells custom-carved products made of natural stone. “All stone is going to be heavy.”

A clever remodeling contractor can work around weighty issues like these when adding a fireplace to an existing home, especially if the addition is made above a vacant space in the basement where supportive structures can be installed. Alternatively, says Ripley, “We’ve designed fireplaces that look massive but are basically built out with studs and sheetrock, and we clad it with slabs to give it the illusion of a big fireplace.”

The necessary venting also factors into locating a fireplace. Running a chimney through, say, the middle of the master bedroom wouldn’t appeal to most homeowners.

Lifestyle matters, too, in selecting the core of the fireplace – a wood-, gas- or pellet-burning firebox. “When people come to us, we ask them some leading questions, “Boegh says, listing several- “How do you live? Are you just home on the weekends? Do you want your fireplace to be aesthetic, or do you want it to be functional?”

With fireplaces that burn wood or pellets, replenishing the fuel requires more time and effort than some homeowners can spare. For others, nothing but the crackle of a wood fire will do. For those often away from home, the convenience of a thermostat-controlled, gas-burning fireplace that will keep a home heated and prevent plumbing from freezing during a power outage trumps all.

With the size, shape and function of a fireplace determined, homeowners shift their attention to its appearance. Often, that process begins with selection of firebox design elements.

“People demand everything from pewter to copper,” says Boegh of the hardware enclosing the firebox. Interiors available for any type of fireplace range from metal to brick to natural stone, depending on customer preference.

But the place where most homeowners focus their decision-making energy is the same place they will later focus their eyes – on the fireplace surround. With the façade, “the only limit is your imagination,” says Ryan Schleihs, owner of Cast Stone Studios in Greenville. The company custom-molds fireplace surrounds and other products from concrete.

“You can inlay different types of metal or glass. It’s a really versatile product that you can customize to your home,” Schleihs says.

So, too, is stone, with which Ripley says homeowners can do “absolutely anything,” assuming they’ve planned ahead with their architects and builders.

“A lot of times, it helps if they just bring in a picture from a magazine,” Ripley says. That image can help narrow options like whether the hearth should be elevated or flush with floor and takes a homeowner a long way toward selecting a material.

Travertine, marble, granite and limestone have proven popular with stone-loving homeowners in recent years. Each has its own character, which an appropriate design will enhance.

As the stone used to create Rome’s Coliseum, for example, travertine lends a timeless, Old World look to a surround. Its naturally pitted texture works best with simple lines rather than highly detailed designs. Marble, on the other hand, has a fine grain that artisans can sculpt into virtually any shape without loss of detail.

Again, a homeowner’s wants – and his or her bank account – determine what’s possible in terms of a fireplace surround, which can span anywhere from a yard or two to 20 feet or more.

Ripley says his company’s projects range in cost from about $4,000 to upwards of $40,000, depending on material, design and shipping requirements.

“We could have a fireplace carved in China where the stone is quarried in Brazil,” he says.

The prices of Schleihs’ designs also vary according to complexity. An array of thin concrete panels with limited detail might cost several hundred dollars, while a tall surround with columns and curves requiring a custom mold could run $10,000 or more.

Homeowners also have the option of brick or stone surrounds, which have become more customized in recent years.

“The biggest trend that I have seen is more complicated looks in mixing of materials and definitely more stone as opposed to brick,” Boegh says.

Integrating space for a television in the fireplace surround also represents a growing trend. “A lot of people are doing it because the fireplace it the focal point, and what’s the point of putting a fireplace in the room and turning your back to it to watch TV?” Boegh says.

Whatever you want – to watch the fire and your favorite show at the same time, to bring flames to life with the flip of a switch or to gaze upon something ultra-modern (or utterly ageless) – a fireplace can offer exactly that.

Carved Creations

Building Stone Magazine – A Publication of Building Stone Institute

Fall 2007

Written By: Stephanie Aurora Lewis

Gardens, parks, town centers and plazas are important to a city’s infrastructure. They create an environment that is suitable – and often even inspirational – for social interaction. The imagery of natural stone and its ability to endure in outdoor conditions for hundreds of years makes it an ideal material for these place-making features such as monuments, fountains, benches and sculptures. The stone carvers who create these sculpted pieces exhibit true handicraft as defined by William Morris during the Arts and Crafts Movement in England at the end of the 19^th century.

Outdoor Sculpture

In Chicago, the Millennium Monument elegantly marks the end of a tree-lined Wrigley Square lawn space in Millennium Park. Similar to Central Park in New York City, the lawn was designed as an inviting space for visitors to relax and to stroll along adjacent walking paths. The beautiful, 40-foot-tall Peristyle monument is composed of Doric columns and includes inscriptions by the founders of Millennium Park in its base. Bybee Stone Company Inc. of Bloomington, Ind., carved the monument out of Indiana limestone.

California features a fountain so stunning that the prince of Saudi Arabia once asked the designer and carver – Bakerfield’s House of Stone, Inc. – if the fountain could be disassembled and shipped to his country. Amazed at this request, House of Stone’s owner Eric Dobbs advised the prince that the weight and size of the fountain (60 feet in circumference) would make air travel difficult and expensive. Still persistent, the prince requested an actual cost estimate for the fountain’s transport. When the figure came in at more than $185,000, the prince decided instead to purchase the fountain’s eight-page set of plans so that he could have it replicated in Saudi Arabia.

House of Stone also creates fountains for the bold Las Vegas strip – a place well known for outstanding outdoor sculpture. Dobbs states that a hand-carved fountain of natural stone, accented with a water and light show, is so visually stunning that it actually competes with the excitement of Las Vegas. House of Stone Inc. is completing much of the stone carving currently in progress for The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino.

Natural Stone for Outdoor Installations

Understanding natural stone is a science and an art. Robert Ripley of Carved Stone Creations from Kaukauna, WI, extensively researches different qualities of natural stone and what happens to these natural stones when installed outdoors. He reports that the greatest amount of detail can be created with marble, a material that can showcase subtleties of fabric and specific features, such as hair, on a sculpture. Granite, Ripley explains, has a tendency to chip off more easily during the carving process, making small details more difficult to highlight. Ripley describes the difference between carving in marble and granite like the difference between using clay and wet beach sand for a creation.

Marble is not often highly recommended for outdoor locations, however, because of the damage that can occur to the stone from freeze/thaw cycles. If marble is used outdoors, it needs to be sealed in the fall during the dry season so that moisture penetration does not occur during the winter and spring seasons. Though it seems insignificant, moisture can penetrate into marble’s microscopic veins and cause significant damage if it starts to expand during a freezing bout. Additionally, minerals in marble fade over time from ultraviolet rays breaking down their colors. When marble is used outdoors, it will weather and consequently show a patina quality – a color some find very beautiful.

Conversely, granite is an idyllic material for sculptures located outside; it will endure the elements twice as long as marble. Granite also is the most resistant to freeze/thaw cycles because its moisture absorption rate is between 1 percent and 3 percent [Correction: the absorption of granite is 0.02-0.4%]. Further, the colors in granite will not fade in ultraviolet light because its colors were “baked” into the stone during its formation through the lava process.

Jerry Williams, owner of Barre Sculpture Studios in Montpelier, VT, states that certain considerations are necessary to protect granite when it is combined with elements such as electricity, water, and fire. Williams conceived, engineered, and carved a breathtaking piece that combines granite and fire. One of Barre’s clients requested a table that could be used for an annual father and son campout. The table would be used near a campfire. Williams proposed a sensational idea with the fire actually be located inside the table. The project is eight feet in diameter and made of Dakota Mahogany granite. The center has a custom-made iron fire pit with bronze lid. The granite is insulated to protect the structural integrity of the stone from the heat of the fire.