Stairing Contest
The changes created tremendous complexity for K M Construction. “I will be the first to admit that our designs are detail-intensive in terms of construction and are demanding in terms of tolerance,” Kraft says.
The project would eventually take 15 employees, five of whom have art degrees, 75 subcontractors — not including the landscapers — and 28 months to complete.
“When you build a Roger Kraft design, you are building art,” says Nick Roberts, now the owner of K M Construction (see “Art History,” below). “Before you start framing, you have to work out how all the elements are going to integrate. If you try to work them out during construction, you’re going to be in trouble.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in the ebony-stained stairway to the new upper floor. The 10-foot ceiling heights required an extended structure. To keep it from looking like “a stairway to heaven,” as the clients feared, Kraft bent it to temper its severity. But this required some complex engineering to craft the curves to respect building codes.
Cantilevered on a steel structure, each step has 12 components and, as different planes curve as the stair rises, each piece is unique to the step. A combination of the architect’s “worms-eye view” sketches and individual templates for each step brought the design to life. “It was an unbelievable, painstaking process that took three months to fabricate,” say Jim Lane, job superintendent and lead carpenter who has a degree in painting from KCAI.
Another challenge involved several large pocket doors, one of which was 8 feet by 7 feet and weighed 250 pounds. The carpenters had to fit the doors in place and test them before drywall installation. “We couldn’t use a common layering process,” Lane says. He created a building sequence that was specific to the house to fit the pieces together instead of applying them on top of one another.
“When it is done, it feels like everything is right. But getting there is always an issue,” says Lane, who admits he’s ultimately rewarded when he finishes something that he first questioned whether he’d be able to do.
For Kraft, KMC’s capabilities encourage him to more challenging designs with the confidence that the highly refined visual sensibility of the crews will be able to turn his ideas into spaces for living.
And their enduring relationship with clients attests to the successful working relationship between Kraft and KMC. Perhaps it will last into a third generation when one of the young daughters is ready for a house of her own.
Loring Leifer is a writer based in Shawnee Mission, Kan.
Art History
Nick Roberts, owner of K M Construction, is used to being surrounded by artists.
He was just 15 when he began working for Kathy Marchant Construction in 1980. Marchant, the company founder, graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute, and soon concluded that she wasn’t going to make a living as an artist. So she started a construction company instead. Marchant would often hire other KCAI graduates whose desire to create things translated well to the construction business.
Roberts continued to work there while in school. After graduating with an MBA, he took a job for a direct-marketing company organizing artists who designed duck stamps. Nineteen months later, he realized that although he liked being surrounded by artists, he missed the construction world. So, he went back to KMC.
In 1992, Roberts bought out Marchant and changed the company name to K M Construction. He maintained the practice of hiring artists, and crews have included sculptors, painters, and printmakers.
“You can teach people building trades and skills, but you can’t teach aesthetics,” Roberts says. “Artists are more likely to possess the ability to visualize the final product.”
This skill has helped the firm attract affluent clients — many of whom are art patrons who delight in having remodeling teams that can discuss Kandinsky as well as carpentry.
And Roberts enjoys being the one who makes sure his artists stay “on time, on budget, and on schedule.” —Loring Leifer