Shelly and Joe Trumpey ’88: Truth Window
"We thought that if we could do it, it would be cool to try. And the great thing about being an artist is that you get to make things."
Joe Trumpey ’88, pictured with wife and co-builder, Shelly Trumpey, and daughters Autumn, and Evelyn, in front of the straw bale home they built near Grass Lake, Michigan.
Photos by Steve Charles
Evelyn Trumpey, born in Ethiopia, stands beside a tapestry from that country in the family room of her new home.
Autumn Trumpey opens the "truth window" in the adobe wall of the Trumpey's straw bale house. The truth window, a feature on most straw bale houses, shows the straw construction of the home. The Trumpey's truth window is a small lattice-work door in an ornate frame they found in Nepal, the country in which Autumn was born.
Autumn Trumpey peers into the truth window.
The central fireplace and chimney heats the home in the winter, was built by first-time stone mason Shelly Trumpey, and is more than 35 feet high.
The second floor balcony and sleeping porch.
Shelly Trumpey designed and cut the railing for the balcony to reflect the leaves of the forest it faces.
Joe Trumpey at the sawmill where he milled literally hundreds of boards from trees from the family's land and logs being discarded by a nearby town.
A Scottish highland bull and Jacobs' sheep take interest in the photographer. The home's east side and cupola are in the background.
The Trumpey's home in a late-summer morning mist.
A sample of Joe Trumpey's joinery work on the home's timber frame.
Joe Trumpey at the railing of the second floor sleeping porch.