A Lasting Legacy: Log & Timber Home Living Special Feature

A Lasting Legacy: Log & Timber Home Living – Annual Buyer’s Guide Special Feature

A couple’s love lives on in this engineered-log home, filled with generous gathering spaces and memorable details.

BY Suzanna Logan | PHOTOGRAPHY BY Brett Hosterman

This story is reprinted with permission from Log & Timber Home Living

Throughout their 47-year marriage, Scott and Barbara Campbell shared a love for many things—their children, their native New Jersey, the outdoors and a wide circle of lifelong friends. They also had a mutual appreciation for distinctive architecture, including log homes. “We always liked the look and feel of a log home,” says Scott. “So about 30 years ago, we decided we were going to buy one.”

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At that time, the couple designed a home and secured a builder, but they ran into easement issues with the property where they hoped to build. “We abandoned the project before it ever got off the ground,” Scott explains. For nearly three decades, the couple put their dream of log home living on hold.
Then, in 2022, Scott resurrected the conversation. “Out of the blue I said to Barb, ‘You still want to try for that log home? If we’re going to do it, we better get going. We aren’t getting any younger.’”

Barbara agreed, and after a two-year-long property search, they placed an offer on a rural piece of land that had been used as a rescue farm. “There was a house, animal enclosures, chicken coops and a swimming pool,” says Scott. With the exception of a stable now used as a workshop, they demolished everything to create a blank slate for their new log home.
The couple teamed up with Timberhaven Log & Timber Homes to design a personalized retreat that would bring together their close-knit family of three adult children, their spouses and grandchildren—all of whom live within 30 minutes of the New Jersey home.
An open layout provides plenty of room for everyone to gather. Favorite spaces include a generous great room, sprawling kitchen island and adjacent dining table that seats 10, and a 30-foot-wide rear covered porch. “Being able to comfortably host the whole family was so important to Scott and Barbara,” shares Timberhaven sales representative Bob Romano.

The open layout also showcases the home’s engineered pine logs and timbers, along with distinctive architectural details, like the prow front, expansive brick hearth in the great room and network of scissor trusses that extend through the center of the home to the exterior porch.

“Those are beautiful, unique timbers,” shares Timberhaven owner Lynda Tompkins. “The scissor trusses are less common than other designs, and then on top of choosing a rarer style, they opted for the heavier timbers—8-by-12s—and had the purlins dovetailed down into the truss rather than sitting on top.” Inside and out, the couple continued their creative approach, layering other special materials into the design, such as bricks sourced from old buildings in the Bronx, cobblestone from excavated streets, reclaimed barnwood and custom finishes made by Amish craftsman, including hand-forged railings and twig-style furnishings.
Through the entire process, Scott says there was a mutual respect between him and Barbara: “We each took our own little areas and designed them. She was okay with what I decided, and I was okay with whatever she decided.”

After decades of dreaming and two years of construction, the home was complete. With abundant natural materials and spacious areas for gathering at every turn, the final result fulfilled the couple’s ultimate wish: “We wanted it to be warm and welcoming,” says Scott. With years of memories already in the books—and many more to come—the home has proven to be just that.

In Loving Memory
Barbara Campbell passed away unexpectedly in April 2026, after two beautiful years in the couple’s dream home. Scott fondly recalls his wife “always making something for somebody,” from the works of art she labored over in her designated quilting room to the hearty meals she prepared around their inviting kitchen island. But of all her creations, the retreat she lovingly designed alongside Scott may be her most lasting legacy. It’s a testament to the enduring beauty of bringing people together. We dedicate this article to her memory.