The Stalsbrotens relied on The Tuscan Group to build their perfect home in Pittsboro
By Anna-Rhesa Versola | Photography by John Michael Simpson
Nothing is more motivating to a custom home builder than having their client living with them.
“It was one of the fastest builds they’ve done,” says Abby Stalsbroten. She laughs about the 5 ½ months she and her husband, Dave Stalsbroten, their four young children and their dog, Butter, spent squeezed into her parents’ basement apartment while her mom and dad, Kellee Metty and Kirk Metty – owners of one of our readers’ favorite local builders, The Tuscan Group – finished construction of a new home for them in Pittsboro.
The experience brought the family closer than ever.
“We had a real frank conversation at the beginning,” Kellee says. “This could really be a relationship wrecker. Dave is amazing at the relational piece. He’s good at making sure everybody’s okay. And, if somebody’s getting upset, he wants to confront it right away before it gets out of control. It happened to be good chemistry between us working together and with them living with us, too.”
Moving to North Carolina
Abby, who grew up in Raleigh, earned a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism from UNC. She landed a job at The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon and then worked as a photojournalist with World Vision, which sent her to countries all over the world. In 2009, Abby met Dave at church in Seattle, where he was a youth minister and ran a CrossFit gym. They started dating in 2010 and married in 2012. Three years later, when they were expecting their first child, Abby and Dave made the difficult decision to leave Dave’s family and relocate to North Carolina to raise their own. They moved into a 1,500-square-foot home in Durham, but by 2020, Abby was pregnant with their fourth child, and they needed space for their growing brood.
“Dave was at home all day, all the time, even before COVID-19,” Abby says. “We could make [that house] work for a while, and we could go crazy. So, we took a leap.”
At the end of 2021, the couple purchased 5 acres of undeveloped property off Mount Olive Church Road and broke ground two months after Abby gave birth to Phoebe.
Abby made design choices with her mom while her two younger brothers, Jonathan Metty and Nathan Metty, helped Dave and Kirk clear the homesite and septic field.
“This is still pretty rural out here,” Abby says. “The internet situation was rough. Dave had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it working here.” Dave depends on a reliable internet connection for his work as a professional services manager at LexisNexis Legal, a software company in Raleigh.
A Custom Design
The Stalsbrotens moved into their 3,100-square-foot modern farmhouse in October 2022. In many ways, they are still settling in with their home-schooled crew: Esther Stalsbroten, 8, Wes Stalsbroten, 6, Josie Stalsbroten, 3, and Phoebe Stalsbroten, 18 months. They are grateful for their own space and feel deeply blessed to have bonded with Kellee and Kirk over the experience.
The striking double wooden beam columns on the front porch leave an immediate impression. “[Dave] did all that himself,” Kirk says. Dave helped with the interior finishes, too; he built the mantel, poured concrete for the hearth, finished the exposed beams and even hand-plastered the fireplace for an Old World appeal.
“[Working with us] gave him an opportunity to do some things on that house that he probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do with another builder,” Kirk. “He got to express himself in that house.”
Inside the two-car garage, Dave has set up a CrossFit workout gym. He wants to build a sauna in the backyard and maybe, one day, he’ll build a timber frame tiny house for guests, Abby says. Meanwhile, Dave is researching different gardening techniques, like hügelkultur, a German method of gardening on top of composting beds.
Inside the home, the main living space is a wide, open plan with clear views of the front and back yards. Abby says she always wanted a wall of books in her home, complete with a rolling ladder to reach the highest shelves. “It was like my ‘Beauty and the Beast’ fantasy,” she says. She got her wish, with bookshelves in the living room and the upstairs loft. “Esther reads like a maniac, well beyond her grade level,” Abby says. Moving into their new house has been a big change for the whole family, but the transition was made easier by including the kids in the process.
“I asked Esther, ‘Do you want your own bedroom when we move?’ and she’s like, ‘No, I’m gonna share with Wes.’ So for the first couple of months we lived here, all three kids were in one bedroom. And then once Phoebe moved out of our room, the two little girls shared, and the two older kids shared. There’s plenty of space, and at some point somebody will want their own room, but for now they’re very happy sharing.”
Walking through the home, Abby recalls the many decisions that were part of the building process. A major one was to widen the original footprint by three feet to add space to an upstairs bathroom and the downstairs home office. Another choice was to include a second laundry room upstairs so the kids can learn to do that chore as they get older. Smaller decisions included paint colors, unique lighting fixtures and cabinet hardware, many of which were purchased from Etsy artisans.
Overall, the place is filled with details that make a house a home, like photos and drawings posted on the refrigerator door, framed photos and keepsakes in the upstairs hall and, taped to the kitchen baseboard is a color illustration of a mouse reading by candlelight in an arched doorway.
It also helps that they are not far from family. “We love having them 10 minutes away,” Kellee says. “We can help each other out a lot with our dogs and babysitting and all that sort of thing. So that’s fun. They’re having a great time. The kids are inventive and creative. They’re always doing something outside, which is great.”
