Taking a holistic approach to building

Lyme - Lunch at an Erik Block Design-Build construction site is a feast of hummus, organic yogurt, whole avocados and sometimes chocolate cake, baked with fresh eggs from a crew member's own chickens.

Even sandwiches get special treatment. Homemade sandwiches are some days warmed in a panini press, plugged into an extension cord more commonly used for power tools. A microwave has made an appearance now and again.

The five guys that make up the Hadlyme-based design-build company - three former rowers, two Ivy League graduates, most clad in Patagonia outerwear - exhibit an attention to quality and detail to their lunches that you might not expect from contractors at your average work site.

But then, these aren't your average contractors.

In their 20s and early 30s, they are Earth-loving, organic-gardening types with a passion for the outdoors and a belief that, in any building job, sustainability and quality should come first.

Their buildings aren't LEED-certified - many are just too small to be worth applying for the costly certification process, Block says - but they're as green as they can make them and as green as their customers will agree to.

"The main thing is, we believe in doing it right," says Block, 30. "It's sort of the 'quality is sustainable' idea, that if this building lasts for 200 years, then it's done its job in not needing its siding replaced in 30 years or its roof being replaced in 10 years. If it's made out of quality materials, and it's done properly, it's going to last."

Block started the company in 2003, a year after he graduated from Keene State College in New Hampshire with a degree in architectural technology. Although he doesn't have the years of experience other local builders have, he's not only survived, but thrived, during the economic recession.

In part, it's because Block has built a reputation as an honest contractor who is as equally adept at designing a structure as he is building one.

"It's rare to see a guy… holding a pencil in one hand and a hammer in another," says Phil Trowbridge, of Old Lyme-based Trowbridge Stone Masonry. "And Erik brings both of that to the table. He's achieved in very few years what it's taken me 25 years, which is put the right team together."

Crash-course training

Block got into the business somewhat accidentally, when a fire destroyed his parents' home on Ferry Road in 2002.

Erik and his brother, Haldan, both Lyme-Old Lyme High School graduates and fourth-generation Hadlymers, had grown up mountain biking and building tree forts in the woods, says Haldan, 27. Both had an affinity for architecture.

Fresh out of college, Block lent a hand, designing a replacement home based on ideas - a wish list of sorts - that the brothers and their parents had floated by each other through the years.

It was a crash course on designing and building, one that lasted 10 to 12 hours a day for 14 months, Block says.

"I got yelled (at) by everybody, so I learned really quickly," says Block, who now lives in Deep River.

He took some classes, read books about designing and building and paid close attention to what clients had to say, good and bad. The business end of things sort of developed naturally from there, he says. Two years into his venture, his brother joined him.

For timber-frame barns, which Block started building just this year, Block blends common-day building methods (i.e., use of power tools) with building practices that date back some 200 years.

Unlike conventional structures, which are built with two-by-four boards nailed together, timber-frame structures - also called post-and-beam - use beams cut on the premises to fit together like puzzle pieces. Hand-carved wooden pegs hold the beams in place.

"I like simplicity, and it's sort of nice to know that with your own two hands, and a simple tool, you can make these beautiful things," Block says.

The hybrid approach to building has worked for the group, which also tries to use as much reclaimed wood as possible.

"If you did all power tools, it takes a lot less time, but you sacrifice the hand-crafted beauty that goes into it," crew member Adam Pipkin says. "So we try and take a balance between the two to try and get as much time-saving from the power tools but not sacrifice any of the beauty of the hand tools."

Timber-frame structures last for hundreds of years in a way modern-day construction rarely does because of the use of high-quality beams, often locally harvested, and the way beams are custom-cut to fit snugly together, Block says.

But it also means they're more expensive, and projects can take longer to complete, Block says. A garage barn the guys have been building on Cove Road in Lyme - Block's sixth timber-frame barn thus far - will take about a month and a half from start to finish and cost about 25 percent more than a conventional stick frame.

"I don't think I'm necessarily paying a premium," says Scott Douglas, who has hired Block for various projects, including timber-frame barns for his horse and sheep in Lyme. "I think I'm paying a price that I think is pretty fair given the work I'm asking for is premium work."

Quality in the Lymes

Block, who hired three employees in the past year, believes he's done well despite the recession in part because residents in the Lyme-Old Lyme area are, like he, conservation-minded and appreciate the extra steps Block takes to use reclaimed materials and minimize his structures' impact on the environment.

Residents also appreciate the historic nature of their homes and are willing to pay for a structure that will last for as long as their own houses have lasted, Block says.

"I think if we were in a different geographic location, we wouldn't have nearly the opportunity," Block says. "This tends to be a very artistic, very wealthy, very open-minded community. … So I think that makes a big difference. It really does. That our mentality matches what most people are looking for: artistic, handmade, local, accountable group of guys with fresh ideas."

Many of Block's clients have known him since he was young, either because he went to school with their children or because they chaperoned field trips and the like. In a small community such as Lyme, it doesn't hurt to be homegrown. In fact, it often draws Block and his crew closer to their clients, some of whom treat them like their own sons.

One client got so involved in the construction work at her home in Lyme that she took Ben Cooley, one of the crew members, up to Brooklyn, Conn., to find just the right salvaged door for a new bathroom the guys are building.

"We're not just trying to show up and take everyone's money and leave," he says. "It's a relationship."

'A real artistic eye'

The fact that Block has thrived in a tight-knit community doesn't take away from the raw talent and work ethic he has exhibited, says Walt Buch, an early client whose daughter went to school with Block.

"I just think he has a real artistic eye," Buch says. "He's not just a good craftsman, not just a good carpenter. He has an eye for an existing space and puts really nice touches on it."

He indicated as proof a scarecrow Block and his crew built last month for a scarecrow exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum. The 21-foot-tall sculpture, inspired by the iconic work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was built out of wood salvaged from other construction jobs.

"That's not a normal 'let's put an A-frame shed on the backyard' type of project," Buch says.

Block takes the lead on projects, but his crew shares all aspects of the design and build work. After all, building timber-frame barns naturally requires teamwork: While one man could easily hoist a stack of 2-by-4 boards on his shoulders, one 400-pound beam of fresh white oak requires the muscle of multiple guys.

Even if they are 6-foot-8, like Haldan Block, or 6-foot-5, like Erik Block.

On his own for the first couple of years, Block brought Haldan on board after Haldan graduated in 2005 with a degree in facilities management from Cornell University.

In addition to design and construction work, Haldan Block brings to the company a natural marketing savvy evident in the clean, functional website he has designed, which is filled with dozens of stylistic photos of hand-hewn details, timber-frame barns, roofing work and renovated kitchens and porches.

The rest of the group came together almost organically, like-minded people who were drawn to each other in part because they were drawn to the same things: rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking.

"Most of us would rather sleep outside than inside," Block says.

For Adam Pipkin, 28, of Deep River, working for Block started out as a side job. For 26-year-old Ben Cooley, who knew the Block brothers growing up in Lyme, it was a new venture after graduating with an art history degree from the University of Pennsylvania and first giving organic farming in Vermont a try.

Guilford resident Mark Couet, 31, came across Block during the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Old Saybrook, a film series geared toward enthusiasts of outdoor sports.

At work, there are no smokers, no yelling, no turning up the music a little too loudly. The work area is tidy, with stacks of lumber on one side and a neat pile of stone on another.

Proudly, Block tells of how he got the portable toilet company he hired to put green chemicals in the work site toilet. He's happy he's gotten even one more person thinking about eco-friendly alternatives.

1% for the Planet

Block has taken his company's respect for the environment to the next level, less than eight years after he established the business.

In March, Block became a member of 1% for the Planet, a group that encourages businesses to donate 1 percent of their gross sales to environmental groups. This will be Block's first year donating to land trusts in towns he works.

"We're coming into the town, we're digging holes, we're offsetting animals' habitats, we're changing people's lands," Block says. "And we understand that there's an impact involved with that. And that to be responsible, we have to take certain steps to minimize the impacts."

This, despite the fact that he and his wife Abigail are expecting their first child and have plans to build a house from scratch on land they own in Hadlyme.

"We have individuals who donate to our land trust, but I'd never heard of anything like this," says George Moore, president of the Lyme Land Conservation Trust. It was "refreshing" to have someone from Block's generation be so mindful of land conservation issues, he says.

"It's a nice marketing opportunity that we really believe in, obviously, because we're giving away money and donating money to causes that we believe in," Block says.

Block's earnestness makes him at times sound idealistic, especially when he talks about, for example, blending smart choices and holistic thinking.

He likes to say he and his crew are fueled by energy from the protein bar Clif Bar, also a 1% member. One day during lunch, he points enthusiastically to the 1% logo on a bar he's eating and looks slightly disappointed when the reporter simply nods and moves on.

But Block is also practical. He understands most people won't drop conveniences for the sake of going green. He knows his lifestyle and building practices aren't necessarily going to revolutionize the status quo.

"We know that by doing what we're doing, we're not going to change the world for everybody," he says. "But it's going to help a small amount, which magnified by other people helping, is going to continue to help everything."