"Wood is universally beautiful to man. It is the most humanly intimate of all building materials." - Frank Lloyd Wright Eco Log Homes is a Canadian company located in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario. We produce custom log homes including high quality log home kits. A recent press release best describes our products and services as follows: Log Homes Built From Canada’s First Certified Sustainable Forest Reserve There is nothing like the warm ambiance and enduring quality of a log home. Eco-Log Building Concepts is a unique builder and supplier of log home kits because the logs they harvest come from the 60,000 acre privately owned Haliburton Forest Wildlife Reserve located about 2.5 hours north of Toronto Ontario. Haliburton Forest is best known for it's outdoor recreation venues which include The Wolf Centre, Walk In The Clouds forest canopy tour and deep lake fresh water Submarine Tours. The Haliburton Forest Reserve all got started when owner and forestry graduate Peter Schleifenbaum moved to Ontario from his native Germany in 1987 to take over the management of the land left to him by his father. In 1962 the elder Schleifenbaum purchased the large tract of wilderness from a logging company that had depleted the timber resources and moved on. Over the past four decades the land was transformed to a thriving operation that contributes economically and environmentally to the long term environmental stability of the forest. As a leading provider of conservation and sustainable resource management Haliburton Forest was Certified as the first sustainable forest in Canada in 1998 under the stringent guidelines of the International Forest Stewardship Council. The certifying agency at the time was the Boston based Smartwood / Rainforest. Alliance. Today forests of Sugar Maple, American Beech, Eastern Hemlock blanket the hills and surround the lakes of the Reserve. The Haliburton Forest is not only a source of certified sustainable timber, it is regularly visited by outdoor enthusiasts for hiking, camping, cross country skiing and other forms of recreation. The Reserve serves as a role model for Canada - a country that is the final frontier of the worlds commercial timber resources. Hemlock has been used for centuries in Eastern Canada for barn construction. Farmers like it because of its strength and resistance to insect attack and decay. Many old barns still standing today were built with hemlock and some refer to hemlock as being “living rock” because of it’s hardening properties when it dries and ages. “Because hemlock is often overlooked by todays builders, the price is lower than many other species, an advantage we pass on to our customers for their log home construction” say Schleifenbaum. Eco-Log Building Concepts was a natural fit for the Haliburton Forest Reserve. There are specific quantities of mature hemlock that come due for harvesting every season – some measuring up to thirty inches in diameter. Each tree is individually selected, carefully felled and skidded by horse before transportation to the nearby Haliburton Forest Mill. Using state of the art saws, each board is squared for timbers or sawn into boards for planking. The Eco-Log home and cottage building kits utilize the Haliburton Forest hemlock and the homes boast steep pitched roofs, spacious lofts and heavy timber walls. Standard logs come 8” x 8” squared but there are other options for seasonal buildings. Log homes can be built to any design but Eco-Log has many standard plans available from 100 to 3000 square feet. “We have developed many Ontario log homes and have shipped a number internationally. All of our customers agree that log homes look like a home should – welcoming, comforting and enduring”, says Gord Higgins Sales Manager for Eco-Log. One thing is for sure - log homes are back in fashion. There are many internet based resources for log building construction technics. Haliburton Forest Reserve also can provide prospective home purchasers with a tour of the mill and review the manufacturing process.