“My wife and I both grew up in a small town in rural North Dakota,†said homeowner and project architect Lonnie Laffen of JLG Architects in Grand Forks. “Our heritage of building is that farmstead with white siding set on stone bases. They used fieldstone or whatever else they could find.â€
Laffen admitted that initially he thought natural stone would be too costly. “The whole stone story is a pretty good one,†he said. “We wanted a heavy base put on the house. Originally, we thought that we could not afford real stone. We looked at precast stone, and that came in fairly high. We looked at brick, and that came in much more than we could afford. I then called the people at Vetter Stone Co. in Mankato, [MN], and they sent a price that was significantly less. We were thrilled that we could use real stone.â€