Inside this issue... March 16 & 19, 2014

Pool Room Sitting Area Bathroom Theater

Home Improvement 2014

John and Rose Lang add pool room for family

By Michael Jacobson

Of course, grandpa likes a room that holds all his hunting trophies.

Of course, grandma likes a room where all her kids, their spouses, and her nine grandchil-dren can gather.

And, of course, those grandchildren love that grandpa and grandma now have an indoor pool.

John and Rose Lang of Richmond accom-plished all this with the addition of a pool room to their house on Cedar Island Lake this year.

“The sole purpose of this room is our grand-children and our children,” said Rose. “They have a standing invitation. They can come any time.”

“We actually call it the ‘Kids Cave,’ and it’s a dream come true,” she added. “It turned out better than we thought.”

The Langs have nine grandkids, ranging in age from 13 to 1, including four one-year-olds,

who all live in the Richmond area. (Their daughter had triplets last year, helping the Langs to add four grandkids in seven weeks.)

“I wanted a room to fit 17 people,” said Rose, wanting to be able to seat themselves, their three adult children, their spouses, and their nine grandchildren, which they can in the pool room. “Our family will never get smaller.”

The pool addition, separated from the main house by the garage and an adjoining solari-um, has its own entry, enabling their kids and grandkids to come and use it whenever they want.

“The mink ranch is such a demanding job,” explained John, a third generation owner of a mink farm south of Richmond. “It’s 365 days a year, so it’s hard to get away. So we made a vacation spot here.”

“The grandkids are here every weekend,” he added. “They have a ball.”

The idea for an addition came from John wanting more room for his hunting trophies. Regular trophy rooms are great, he said, but underutilized. There’s so much to see, but not many take the time to sit around and notice the details.

So, they combined the idea of a trophy room with a pool, which works great, John said, since the kids are happy swimming and adults can soak in the sights while watching.

They started dreaming of the pool addition several years ago, but it took 3-4 years to build, by the time they got all the necessary permits, complicated by their location next to a lake, the size of the addition, and the road running right behind it. The two-story, dual-purpose room includes a pool, a sitting area, a full kitchen (one of Rose’s must haves), a hot tub, and a bathroom/changing room. Upstairs, there is another, more formal sitting area and a theater room. The rooms are insulated and sound proofed, so you can watch a movie without hearing any screaming from the pool.

“We designed it as we went,” said John. When they got a good idea, they incorporated it into the addition. “It just kept growing,” he continued. “Let’s put a theater in. Let’s put a seating area in.”

The addition is 4,000 square feet over two stories. “I wanted to build bigger, but we couldn’t, so we went up,” said John of adding a second story.

LANGS – see page 2

Couple builds family-friendly pool

addition to lake home

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Paynesville Press, Shopper & Eden Valley Watkins Voice March 16 & 19, 2014

Photo by Michael JacobsonRose, who wanted their entire immediate family (three children, their spouses, and nine grandchildren) to be able to gather in the new addition, wanted a full kitchen by the pool for snacks and for full meals.

Photo by Michael Jacobson This solarium – running along the garage – connects the Lang’s house with their new pool addition. While the sun was welcome this winter, the room has shades to make it usable in summer, too.

LANGS – from page 1Another special feature of the addition is a

solarium, which connects the pool addition to the house. Running along the back side of the garage, the glass solarium provides another sitting area. (The solarium has a cover to block the sunlight in summer.)

“Better. Better than I thought or expected,” John said of the finished addition. “You never want to leave home.”

The shape of the pool – basic rectangle – was determined by the one-ton cover, which not only insulates the pool when not in use but keeps it safe.When the cover is on, you can walk right across the pool, the Langs said.

Married since 1976, John and Rose bought the lake lot in 1975, just months before they got hitched. Then they lived in the small cabin, winterizing it as best they could, until they could build the year-round house they wanted in the early 1980s, a large L-shaped rambler. John’s grandparents used to own a cabin a few places down the road, built in the 1910s and one of the first on the Chain of Lakes.

LANGS – see page 3

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Paynesville Press, Shopper & Eden Valley Watkins Voice March 16 & 19, 2014

LANGS – from page 2“I didn’t want to go far from work,” said

John of the location on Cedar Island Lake, just a mile or so from the mink farm. “My dad and mom lived on the ranch, and I always wanted to be on the lake.”

With several undeveloped, wooded islands dominating their view of Cedar Island Lake, “it feel like you’re up north,” said John of their home. “That’s one of the reasons we bought it.”

John’s and Rose’s sons are the fourth genera-tion mink farmers in the family. In addition to the mink ranch south of Richmond, the Langs built a new facility on Co. Rd. 34 near Eden Valley this past year. They currently produce about 50,000 pelts per year and would like to increase their operation to 100,000 pelts per year, said John.

LANGS – see page 4

Photo by Michael Jacobson Upstairs, John and Rose Lang created a sitting area…

Photo by Michael Jacobson …and a theater room for the family.

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Paynesville Press, Shopper & Eden Valley Watkins Voice March 16 & 19, 2014

Photo by Michael JacobsonJohn and Rose Lang have nine grandchildren – ages 13 to 1 – all of whom live in the Richmond area. Since their business (mink farming) makes it difficult to get away, they built a vacation spot right at home.

Photo by Michael JacobsonThe pool cover, which only came in a rectagular shape, dictated the size and shape of the pool. The Langs wanted it to be safe, and with the one-ton cover on you can walk across the pool.

LANGS – from page 3John wanted the new room to “wow” people.

“All we wanted was to make a place where peo-ple go, ‘Ahhh!’” said John.

Over five miles in knotty alder boards were used to make the addition, lining the ceiling and walls.

Dozens of mounts decorate the two-story pool addition… mule deer from Montana, Utah, and Wyoming… a water buffalo and a red stag from Argentina…moose from British Columbia and Ontario …a cougar from Utah…a lynx from Africa…fallow deer, bears, and a tiger that John raised at the mink ranch.

Nine more mounts are coming, including a 400-class elk that John took in Colorado. Of course, he’ll be adding new mounts. “That’ll be forever. As long as I’m healthy, I’ll be pulling the trigger,” said John of his love of hunting.

But beyond the mounts, John and Rose paid attention to the small details of the addition. So the decorations include a moose antler chan-delier and a couple deer antler chandeliers; stamped concrete; wildlife scenes etched in the glass partitions in the upstairs sitting area, overlooking the pool; wildlife murals in the dressing room; different wildlife scenes on the

LANGS – see page 5

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Paynesville Press, Shopper & Eden Valley Watkins Voice March 16 & 19, 2014

Photo by Michael JacobsonThe new pool room also features a hot tub for children and adults.

Photo by Michael JacobsonThe new pool room also features a hot tub for children and adults.

Photo by Michael JacobsonThe pool addition includes a dressing room and a bathroom, with a full shower.

Photo by Michael JacobsonThe Langs wanted all the details of their new room to be special, including this moose-antler chandelier above the entryway. So the pool can be used by their kids and grandkids whenever they want, the addition has a sepa-rate entrance from the outside.

LANGS – from page 4 wall sconces and different animals on the

electric outlet covers; and even a mountain sil-houette, made of granite, for the snack bar backsplash.

“There’s lots to see. You can’t see it all at once,” said John of the details, all in the wild-life theme. “Everything is different.”

“The workmanship is beautiful,” agreed Rose. Touches include a bench, near the shal-low end of the pool, so adults have a spot to sit

while watching the kids swim. The Langs took trees down in July 2013 for

the pool addition and started construction in August 2013. They began using the pool in the second week of January 2014.

“We weren’t in a big hurry,” said John. “We just wanted good workmanship.”

Of course, there are some things yet to fin-ish, such as installing granite on the exterior; hooking up the electronics in the theater room, including a shooting and hunting simulator; building a waterslide at the end of the pool; and

adding cement animals outside, along with the other landscaping. They plan to have a bear, an elephant, a giraffe, and a tiger, with paths lead-ing up to the large lawn figures. “That’s gonna be this year’s project,” said John.

Since it’s difficult for a mink-farming family to go on vacation, “we built our paradise here,” said John.

Why go south for the winter? wondered John. “Why would we go anywhere? We’ve got every-thing here. It’s like a little paradise.”

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