The entire 5,400-square-foot chalet was shipped to Boulder in six 40-foot containers and assembled with the help of two “Zimmermen”—skilled master craftsmen trained in German timber-frame building.

Like the entire home, the master bath is airy and bright, and features upscale materials that reflect European flair.

The couple chose wall-mounted sinks and toilets to give their powder room a contemporary look.

Patagonia rosewood floors, oak cabinetry and sustainably harvested Nordic timber trim lend natural warmth to the kitchen’s clean lines.

Stout timber beams, exotic hardwoods and full-glass exterior walls in Ralf Meier and Maryanne Bruno’s imported German chalet shatter the stereotypes normally associated with prefabricated homes. And the rosewood flooring stands up well to their shepherd’s toenails.

German homes are built to last and employ state-of-the-art “green” building methods to help conserve energy in a country where fuel costs have been high for decades.

It’s a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World!

The owners of an imported modular German chalet in Fourmile Canyon hope to change the way Americans think about prefabricated homes.

Photos by Ron Forth
By Lisa Marshall

If we build it, will they come?

It’s a question Ralf Meier and Maryanne Bruno couldn’t help but ask as they gazed upon a tree-studded, 35-acre slice of Fourmile Canyon in spring 1995.

For years, German-born Meier had longed for the charming green-built chalets of his homeland, and often dreamed of plucking one from his Bavarian village and dropping it down on a Colorado hillside for him and his bride. He’d also dreamed of making that home a model to launch a company that would import German-built homes for other local home buyers.

But with no land or financial backing, Meier’s seemingly crazy plan languished.

“We’d kind of given up on the idea,” Bruno recalls. Then, during a bike ride just weeks before their wedding, the two stumbled upon an ideal property in Fourmile Canyon. Within a month they’d sunk their savings into it, and ships were soon on their way carrying the couple’s prefabricated German chalet to Colorado.

“As soon as we saw this land, we knew this was it,” says Bruno, 48, of the property. “It was definitely meant to be.”

Today, Meier, 48, is busy flying Colorado clients to Germany to pick out factory-built homes, while Bruno—a nurse at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver—enjoys the couple’s 5,400-square-foot modular home. “It’s like living in paradise,” Bruno says, looking out her kitchen windows at unparalleled Flagstaff Mountain views.

With stout timber beams, a steep tile roof and full-glass exterior walls, the Bruno/Meier home defies all negative stereotypes associated with a prefab house: It’s modern, green-built and spacious. Meier, an international wood importer, finished the interior with an exquisite array of diverse woods, including Patagonia rosewood floors, oak cabinetry and sustainably harvested Nordic timber trim. The huge, ultra-thick windows tip open from the top, letting in fresh air and bathing almost every room in warmth and natural light. With nearly everything in the house imported from Germany, including the sleek wall-mounted toilets, the decorative wooden garage door and the Miele espresso machine, the place oozes European flair.

But it was no easy—or cheap—task to bring it here from Germany.

On Nov. 7, 1995, just a week after newlyweds Meier and Bruno secured a building permit, workers at the Platzhaus factory in Bad Salgau, Germany, began loading the couple’s modular house into six 40-foot containers, which were trucked to Antwerp for the two-week ocean voyage to Houston. From there, the containers were transported by train to Denver, where a few brave drivers agreed to maneuver 78-foot-long delivery trucks up the narrow, winding canyon road to the couple’s rocky and steep dirt drive in the middle of winter. It took two cranes to unload the colossal delivery, and transportation costs alone exceeded $65,000.

“To get [the house] up here was really an undertaking,” says Meier, who jokes, “I got a little older.”

But a mere 14 days after the containers were unpacked, the walls were up, the roof was on and the house was fully wired and plumbed.

“To build a house like this at this location would typically take a year and a half. You have to deal with an architect, then the general contractor, and by the end, you are ready to shoot yourself,” says Meier, who moved with Bruno into their home the following spring. “This is just a better way to build.”

In addition, customizing options for a German-manufactured modular home are endless. Home buyers can choose from different floor plans, finishes, windows, doors, roofs, materials and other details, Meier says.

Unpacking and Stacking
Like a giant puzzle, the Meier/Bruno home arrived in huge pieces, with pre-stained wall and ceiling panels complete with installed wiring, plumbing and insulation. It also arrived with two German “Zimmermen”—skilled master craftsmen specially trained in German timber-frame building. The Zimmermen even wore traditional button-down corduroy garb while piecing together the couple’s home during a fierce December.

Homesickness aside, one can’t help but wonder why Meier would go so far as to ship an entire home to Colorado from more than 5,000 miles away. Why not just have someone here build it?
“Quality, speed and energy efficiency,” Meier replies.

While many U.S. builders would beg to differ, Meier argues that it’s nearly impossible to find the quality craftsmanship and energy efficiency in the United States home market that is standard in the European home-building industry. Because German families tend to move less and sometimes pass their homes on for generations, German houses are “built to last,” Meier says. And, because European fuel costs are traditionally higher than those in the United States and regulations governing energy consumption are more stringent, Germany has been at the forefront of green building for decades.

Meier’s house, for example, features 10-inch-thick, ultra-insulated walls that keep the house remarkably quiet, even during the canyon’s notorious windstorms. The enormous low-UV windows provide plenty of solar warmth, saving on winter propane bills, and electronically controlled exterior aluminum shades keep warm air inside in winter and hot air outside in summer. The vast majority of the home’s building materials are free of formaldehyde, and even the factory they came from takes pride in minimizing waste.

“Everything about this house is green,” Bruno says.

But what about all the fuel used to get it here?

“We just remind people of all those diesel trucks coming to their job sites to build their houses,” Bruno says, noting that a conventionally built house calls for a much larger on-site workforce. Plus, she points out, “Do people think all their materials come from Colorado? They don’t. They come by truck from all over the country. At least this all comes in one shot.”

Peter Connell, president of the modular housing council for the National Association of Home Builders, says he highly doubts there will be a huge rush to import homes to the United States from Germany (Meier’s house is believed to be Colorado’s first). With more than 200 national manufacturers churning out roughly 40,000 modular houses annually, consumers already have plenty of homes to choose from, Connell says, and they are of equal or better quality, and as energy efficient as those built overseas. “All our manufactured homes are built in a controlled environment with independent, third-party inspections. There is no room for cutting any corners,” he says. “In short, buy American.”

But Meier says his business has already picked up. He’s imported and erected a second home in Boulder County, has another project underway in Telluride, and recently teamed up with Germany’s WeberHaus to build 25 imported prefabricated homes in Nederland.

“It’s huge,” Bruno says of the imported German modular home market. “We took so much pride in building our house, and we are really excited.”
As for Meier, it couldn’t feel more like “Home Sweet Home.”

Freelance writer Lisa Marshall thought the term “mod” applied only to unconventional 1960s clothing, but knows better after touring Maryanne and Ralf’s modular home.

© 2008 Brock Publishing Company
homes@brockpub.com