Home of the Month in North Oaks continues hands-on DIY family tradition

Michael Hara had a motto that kept him going during the three years it took to build a house for his family: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Although Hara is an architect, he primarily designs commercial and cultural buildings. This was his first residential project, which he decided to build himself to save money and carry forward a family tradition. His grandfather and his father had both built their own houses, and Hara has been welding, woodworking and fixing things around the house since he was a boy.

“We were a ‘take care of it yourself’ household,” Hara said. “We didn’t hire anything out.”

He and his wife, Christina, found a little more than two-acre lot in North Oaks in 2020, satisfying a longing to raise their three children closer to nature. However, as they explored construction costs, it became apparent that building their forever home within budget would require a lot of sweat equity. Hara also had the “it’s-part-of-my-heritage” itch to scratch and wanted to include his son, as his father had done with him.

To prepare for the task, Hara earned his general contractor license, which made obtaining permits and insurance easier. Then he and his wife began figuring out what their new house would look like, going through several different iterations before agreeing on a design that suited raising kids and living into sunset years. Hara filed for the permit and was ready to go.

Spoiler alert: It was harder than anticipated.

“I saw this as an opportunity to learn by doing,” he recalled. “It was comical how unprepared I was.”

He lacked ground-up homebuilding experience and the heavy equipment that would’ve made the job easier, leading to back-breaking and often time-consuming workarounds. For example, early on, the floor trusses arrived on site too early, and lacking a Bobcat, Hara had to drag them by hand through the snow to make room for excavation.

“I learned the hard way how important sequencing is,” he said.

Through it all, Hara worked his full-time job as an architect (remotely, because of the pandemic), shuttling back and forth from the family’s old house until the new one had weatherproof interior and connected Wi-Fi. Then Hara relocated his office to the site, building a desk from two sawhorses and a piece of plywood and bringing in a pizza oven and a small fridge.

“It was a tough year,” Hara said. “Christina is the true hero of the story. She juggled three young kids throughout the project because I needed to finish the work.”

Although he hired professionals to do the excavation and foundation work, Hara was present and involved, available to make decisions or shift course if needed. He and his dad worked side by side with the framers, plumbers and electricians and did all the finish carpentry, millwork, cabinetry, exterior wood cladding and landscaping themselves. Hara also built most of the furniture in the house.

His efforts paid off with a 2023-24 Home of the Month win, a partnership between the Star Tribune and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Minnesota recognizing top residential designs.

The home cuts a crisp minimalist form that sits quietly in its natural surroundings, a single story that gives the treetops and sky their glory and is easier to build than a multi-story. Other choices depended on whether Hara had the skills, tools and physical strength to do it himself. For example, choosing exterior materials that he could cut, size and otherwise manage with woodworking tools.

The Haras’ goal was to build only as much house as they needed to save money and avoid wasting space.

“Our last home was small, but we used every room a lot, and that’s what we wanted here,” Christina Hara said, explaining how they designed it for everyday life, not the occasional big gathering like Thanksgiving. “We can always pull up chairs and a folding table for that.”

At the heart of the main floor are an open living, dining/craft/board game area and a roomy kitchen with three walls that create a sense of separation. A palette of limestone, drywall, metal and brown wood tones provide a backdrop for the couple’s eclectic art, including the life-size, ever-changing landscape painting that is the Haras’ floor-to-ceiling windows. Overlooking acres of wetlands with eastern light filtering through mature oak trees, the view and the adjoining patio make the house feel bigger.

The main floor also includes a den with a walnut bar and cabinetry Michael Hara built and an open porch with a wood-burning stove he might eventually screen in someday. The couple were content to leave some parts of the house unfinished.

As Hara explained: “It’s exciting to still have design problems to solve, things to build and a space to refine.”

Designing firm: Studio Hara.

Project team: Michael Hara, AIA.

Laurie Junker is a Twin Cities-based writer specializing in home design and architecture. Instagram: @fojunk