Habitat for Humanity of the St. Vrain Valley marked a milestone Friday on its second Estes Park home, gathering volunteers and community supporters for a barbecue lunch as crews worked to get the two-story house under roof before fall weather arrives.
The trusses went up Friday morning at the home in the 1700 block of Raven Avenue, and crews planned to have the roof sheathed by the end of the day. Insulated sheathing was also going up around the second story, helping make the structure weather-tight so volunteers can move more of their work indoors as temperatures drop.
Habitat hopes to complete the three-bedroom home by the end of the year, allowing its new family to move in by the first of the year.
David Emerson of Habitat for Humanity said the house represents more than another construction project. It is part of a growing commitment to affordable homeownership in Estes Park.
“This is the second of five homes,” Emerson told the crowd gathered for lunch. After completing the Raven Avenue homes, he said Habitat plans to turn its attention to a development on Coyote Run.
“We feel we’re starting to build momentum here in Estes Park,” said Emerson.
Eight additional Habitat homes are planned at Coyote Run, bringing the organization’s planned Estes Park construction to 13 homes over the next several years. Habitat is exploring single-story, universal-design homes for the Coyote Run project that could allow residents to age in place.
“We feel we’re starting to build momentum here in Estes Park,” said Emerson.
Friday’s gathering also demonstrated how many hands — and how many community partners — it takes to build one house.
Emerson recognized a four-person crew from Big Sky Truss that arrived at 7 a.m. and had the roof trusses in place by about 9 a.m. Sterling Crane donated the crane used to lift the trusses. The Bank of Colorado sponsored the barbecue lunch spread.
Some of the people doing the steady, week-after-week work on the house are women.
Grace Helton, Estes Park construction site supervisor, leads the Raven Avenue build and works with a regular crew of about eight to 10 local volunteers. On Friday, she coordinated the Habitat volunteers with crews that came to set the trusses and move the house closer to being dried in.
“It shows how many different people go into building a house,” Helton said.
Among those regular volunteers are Melissa Wood, who helps coordinate the Estes Park Citizenship Project, and Joan Hooper. They have become familiar faces on the construction site wielding nail guns.
Hooper, a retired biomedical researcher and professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, is part of the regular Friday crew, lending her time to a project where volunteers help build homes for Estes Park families.
The women’s presence has been noticeable on a construction site where building trades have traditionally been dominated by men.
Helton, Wood, and Hooper were among the women gathered Friday amid lumber, scaffolding, power tools, and the partially enclosed house — a visible reminder that Habitat homes are built not only for the community, but by the community.
The Raven Avenue house is a mirror image of Habitat’s first home next door, though the two houses have different rooflines. The new house has three bedrooms, and Habitat also has plans for it to accommodate four bedrooms or a first-floor bedroom when a family’s needs call for it.
Habitat has identified two prospective families who are working through the application process.
For now, the focus is on enclosing the second house and keeping construction moving before winter weather sets in.
The weather-protected panels installed on Friday combine structural sheathing with a water-resistant barrier and insulation, reducing the additional weatherproofing work needed before exterior finishes can be installed.
With the trusses overhead, the walls and roofing taking shape, and volunteers gathering for burgers and hot dogs in the front yard, the project was beginning to look less like a construction site and more like the next home in a growing neighborhood.