Today we’d like to introduce you to Ellen Ransom.
Hi Ellen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m 69 years old. I grew up in Glen Ellyn, IL 8th of 9 children, in a house my dad built himself. It was a good area to grow up, graduate, go to college, and get married and start a family. Midwesterners are salt of the earth people, but I always knew I wouldn’t stay there, I wanted a more southern climate. I had already built our “forever home” back in Naperville IL, a timberframe, built in a week by family and students paying the timberframe company to learn how to do this ancient craft.
The “forever” lasted only a year, as we moved to Atlanta with a new job for my husband Niel. There we bought someone else’s forever home and homeschooled our 3 and eventually 4 children. We loved Atlanta and hated the traffic. We knew we had to escape and eventually my husband found a good job in Raleigh. After living in Atlanta, we laughed as people in Raleigh complained about traffic.
We came to NC in 1997, My husband and our 4 children moved into a 3 bedroom apartment with our 2 dogs. As soon as we could we got a house built on our new found land. Rolesville had a population of about 500. But we knew it wouldn’t last, We were right next door to Raleigh and they aren’t making any more land. Got my General Contractor’s License and built our first house on the 70 acres we bought. The first NC house was built on 10 acres. on the street and started planning our forever home. First we needed a road to gain access to the back 60 acres where we wanted to eventually build our final house.
We made great progress toward our plans for our new forever home on 60 acres. We planted an orchard and build a fence around the tiny fruit trees. We worked with our timber frame company and had the final plans for a large house, this time build by professionals. I pulled the permits and next thing you know we were riding horses on our big field and thinking about the latest job offer, which would land us in Paris, France for 2-3 years.
We moved on to this 3 year adventure after selling our livestock and putting our house on the market while having friends live there in the meantime. Our European (and Egypt) adventures were wonderful But that’s another story. We sold our house the day before we returned to Raleigh, arrived and hit the ground running. Cell phone store first. Car dealers next. We had flexible buyers who let us take our time cleaning out the last of our belongings. We found an architect to work with, and bought a house in Raleigh, a “simple to sell” 5-4 and a door and as soon as could get final plans to pull a permit I began the reverse commute out of raleigh to Rolesville daily to get our new home, a hybrid timber frame, going vertical. We broke ground in 2007 and moved in less than a year later. It took a bit longer because I was building with “Healthy Built Home” standards in mind. The house has passive and active solar features including solar heated floors on the first floor and the basement. We moved our chicken coop down the street and got our first livestock, new chickens. Eventually we moved in and got Mytonic Goats (fainting goats, a breed native to North America) a beef steer, and turkeys and harvest our own hay. We still had our German shepherd dogs, who had traveled to Paris with us, and we built this new house with housing for puppies in mind, hence our excellent facility. Year after year we were adding fencing and animals and came to the point where we needed a real barn for animal shelter and for hay storage. i looked into purchasing old timber frames and having them brought to us and resurrected here. I looked into modern barns like Morton buildings. And then one day my son got the idea to check out the barn down the street that was doomed because they were about to build a subdivision there. We went and visited it, and honestly, it was in rough shape, but it had a hay loft that was 3/4 full of straw bales, and that gave me hope that it still had some structural integrity. I found a mover who had moved airplane hangers so a little 30×40 foot barn was easy for him. But we had to avoid overhead wires which add tremendously to the moving cost. We were able to bring the barn down the rough path for the future connection to the existing subdivision, then to get permission to remove mailboxes along the 25 foot wide street so we could bring the 30 foot wide barn home. We had to take fences down at our house too, and finally got it nestled in where it should go. Then the restoration could begin. Eventually the old barn has gotten a new life and the idea is to turn these 100+ year old structures into real working building. The big barn loft for events with 100 or less people, the pack house for a Bridal party to get ready or a farm Air B&B, the workshop for the groom and his buddies to assemble. Ransomshire has hosted 7 weddings so far, starting with my daughter’s and my son’s in 2013, and more to come when all the renovations are complete and we can provide real restrooms for our guests.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Artist, gardener, orchardist, beekeeper, hay farmer, livestock, chickens
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
hard work more than luck
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ransomshire.com
- Facebook: ransomshire shepherds
- Youtube: ransomshire shepherds
