Great Profiles

He may be in a tepee. Or on an abandoned boulevard. Or in the governor’s office. Or perhaps at a desk. Maybe even in a cathedral in Helena. But one day, 30 years ago, Steve Loken found himself on the shore of Lake Koocanusa and that one day led to many things.

In the mid-1970s, Loken was bicycling across Montana. Sixteen miles out of Libby, he stopped at Lake Koocanusa. The mighty stone wall of the dam had been erected, but the reservoir had not been filled. And there was the source, the rushing Kootenai River, that was soon to power the dam’s turbines.

He recounted, “All of the reservoir impoundment area behind the dam was empty except for this silver river flowing at the bottom of it. There were just smoking piles of slash and clearcuts for 90 miles along both sides of that river.”

Montana needed more energy. But how Montana got its energy shocked Loken.

“I just thought that was a sad thing to happen to such a magnificent river to produce some electricity,” he reflected. “So that was when I decided to stop that from happening again I would try to do what I could to make sure energy conservation was in most of the things I did.”

Loken had wanted to be a biologist.

He worked in the Flathead Lake biology station at the University of Montana, while getting his graduate degree. He loved so many things: geology, material science composites, biology, botany, ecology, landscape ecology, restoration work, history, historical preservation. How could he possibly find something that encompassed so much?

Then Loken found building.

“Building really allows me this incredible venue of touching a lot of materials and learning about adhesives, materials, material technology, wastes, energy, nutrients, landscaping, water,” Loken said.

“It’s a fascinating, integrative look at the built environment and the natural environment both.”

On a drizzly Saturday morning, Loken trod across the rich soil of the Dakota Greens Boulevard Restoration project, an ecological urban in-fill project he is designing on Dakota Street. Walking past white tarps covering heaping piles of sod, sawdust and soil and weaving among shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows, Loken opened the door into his business’s office located across from the boulevard.

For the last ten years, Loken looked at the empty strip of boulevard – the abandoned cars, weeds and garbage – from his office’s window. The city was able to construct the bike-pedestrian path on one side of it but limited funds forced it to desert the rest.

“I vowed that I was going to do something to it that was restorative,” Loken said.

With his eyes gleaming and his strong hands, darkened with stains of soil, Loken excitedly pointed to a draft laid out on the table. His finger traced the colored shapes that outlined where this plant will be placed, this path will weave, this grass will lie. The empty boulevard was soon to look much different then it once was.

Loken has been a builder since the early 1980s. Then in 1989, he ventured into a new realm: green building. Green building is not merely about green materials and recycling products. It’s about energy; conserving energy.

It was a natural transition.

From an early age, Loken learned the importance of conserving resources. He grew up on a small farm in southern Minnesota, raising and butchering animals, canning, gardening and building.

“I was raised by a frugal Norwegian family and we didn’t spend much money on things,” Loken explained, his brown hair and stocky, athletic frame betraying his lineage. “I always learned the value of things on our farm and where resources come from.”

“And as I was growing up,” he recalled, “we often times found ourselves deconstructing buildings so that they wouldn’t be burned or bulldozed by others. We saved the wood and used that to build some of the buildings on our farm. As a result I have always have had this ethic encoded in me about not wasting things.”

Loken’s father was a part-time carpenter and handyman. He taught his son about tools and working with his hands. And spending time working outside ingrained an appreciation for the natural world in Loken. When he wasn’t building, he camped and hiked.

“I did fifty miles in one day, just one walking thing,” Loken remembered. “That was fun.”

After a business partnership that lasted for 15 years, Loken established his green building business, Loken Builders, in 1996. The business focuses on a variety of projects, including urban in-fill projects, restoration of existing buildings and historic renovation. He has done contemporary work in Montana towns, multi-family residences and businesses. He limits new construction, only pursuing it if he feels it can be done ethically.

And he always builds with an eye to conserving energy. He tries to harness the Earth’s power, to capture the sun, contain the wind, reuse wood and employ them for the manmade environment.

Loken has learned many things through the years. “For me it’s not just a building, and it’s not just what a building is made of, but it’s this whole integrative look at how we really do need to retool our cities.”

He has gained inspiration from places all over the world. The last 15 to 18 years, Loken has done national and international consulting throughout Europe, the Baltic States, Australia, Scandinavia, and Japan, lecturing on energy and resource conservation before it was termed green building.

Over the last couple of years, the travel bug has left him and the majority of Loken’s work is now in the Western states, mainly in Montana.

University of Montana Professor Paul Hubbard invited Loken to his Environmental Studies class after hearing him speak in several conferences. Loken spoke to enthralled students about energy options in Montana, waving his hands enthusiastically with each solution he spoke about.

“He is incredibly articulate and able to express very progressive ideas in pragmatic ways,” Hubbard explained.

Hubbard said Loken approaches energy in terms of being efficient and conserving energy, not just the “sexy talk” of finding alternative sources.

“He is doing it every day with his building. It’s a tangible way of putting ideas into action,” Hubbard explained, “He is doing it as an educator, as an advisor to local and state government, someone who’s actually walking the walk.”

Office manager Wallace sat in the Loken Builders’ office, flipping through pages of a scrapbook of Loken’s past projects. She explained that the majority of Loken’s projects entail remodeling existing structures and recycling products in order to “recreate it so that it does not lose its flavor.”

“Look at it and you can see the difference. There is just something that characterizes a Loken house,” she said, pointing to the picture of a yard slightly raised with natural stone. He looks for the unusual, she explained, and the subtle — Mexican tile with hand painting, distinctive color themes, particular knee braces off of roofs, gingerbread decorations, unique landscaping, those finishing touches.

“I’ve always felt, like Aaron Copland’s music, simple things really have a lot of power,” Loken explained. “I like native landscaping, I like wild grasses and woody shrubs, I don’t like mowed lawns, I like nature to complement the house and vise versa. And I also like a worn look. I don’t like new and crisp things, I like things that look like they’ve have been there for awhile and they have a place there.”

Ten years ago, Michael Kreisberg consulted his long-time friend, Loken, about the reconstruction of his 100-year old house he shared with his wife, Deirdre Black, on the bank of the Clark Fork River.

Kreisberg had already consulted several contractors with his desire to open the front of the house up to the river and redo parts inside, while still keeping its authentic character. It was an old house which would mean major reconstruction. All the builders declined. Loken accepted.

“He was the only one who understood what we wanted,” Kreisberg explained.

The project took many, many months. Loken came on his free time and worked with Kreisberg. They and Loken’s crew took off the old wood, restained it and put it back on. When Kreisberg suggested changing the roof, Loken urged him to keep the original shape, “out of respect to the historic neighborhood.” A wood stove was put in to heat the house. A pile of porch boards that were stacked in the yard became part of the floor.

“It’s unusual to work with a person who will let you learn and do the things on your own house,” Kreisberg said.

“The house is warm, tight, and will last another 100 years,” Kreisberg said. “Other people would have gotten impatient but he loves that kind of thing. [The other builders] would have knocked it down,” Kreisberg said.

“I try to make simple Craftsman-type homes,” Loken explained. “The Craftsmen era in the teens, 20’s, 30’s in this country to me was a time of rich simplicity. It was a reaction against the high bourgeois Victorian frills and colors and money and wealth and cuteness and it brought every man to a level of prominence…It empowered the regular man or woman to feel that what they were and what they did was worth something…The architecture reflected that.”

People want Loken’s designs, Wallace explained, because “it’s not just a reputation, it’s that one-on-one relationship. He has a natural charisma. People know he’s interested in them and therefore they value what he says.”

One phone call. Loken speaks with the mayor. Another phone call, a client wants a slight change on a blueprint. Next, he disappears into the shop next door to talk to the workers about building assignments.

“He’s like a hummingbird…he’s up, he’s down, he’s here, he’s there,” Wallace said, laughing. “I may not see him in the office for two days. He has so much going on. He loves life and he wants to live it to the fullest.”

And with so many things going on, Loken’s typical day has to begin very early.

5 a.m.  Loken works on designs and estimates for projects, scours four to five newspapers to see what is going on in the world and in the green community. He write notes for needed tasks in his office.

7 a.m.  Workers moved out to projects. Calls to subcontractors to organize pouring concrete, placing re-bar,  excavating for foundation, electrical and plumbing, moving tractors, trucks, making sure tools work, questions are answered.
9 a.m. Sends notes on important issues to shop supervisor and office manager.
10 a.m. Works on more designs. Appointments with clients, discussing new plans and blueprints or revisiting existing plans and clients.
12 p.m. Lunch at home with friends or clients.
1 p.m. Speak on energy solutions to students at the University of Montana.
2 p.m. Community projects which may include but not limited to: volunteering at a land use planning group in town, working in a small energy group, pitching ideas on how to reduce Montana’s carbon footprint at the Global Warming Advisory Commission for the mayor’s and governor’s office, discussing a novel at his book club.
5 p.m. Come home. Hour-long walk or ski with dog, Carly.
6 p.m. Cook dinner with friends.
8 p.m. Practice singing for the Messiah – he’s a tenor – at Helena’s cathedral. No television, just more books to read.
Midnight. Bedtime. “That’s a goal, trying to do that. Not too successful.” Loken smiled.

Winter’s snow and brisk temperatures have forced Loken to abandon nights in his tepee, where he sleeps for most of the year. He likes the opening at the top, allowing him to peer at the Montana sky. But when the snowflakes fell, he returned to his house.

In 1996, Loken’s energy-efficient and green home was featured in the publication, Parade. The project, which took several years, was conducted after significant research on a variety of materials and products.

Loken said, “I tried to pick a design that would typify a standard American home, except this one had 47 different recycled content or alternative building materials in it, super-insulated, passive solar-heated but it looked like a regular American home, it wasn’t unusual looking.”

He lived there with his wife, Christine, daughter, Kira, and son, Rye, for eight years. He thinned and stewarded the land around it, built ponds, and planted native grasses and shrubs.
But Loken likes moving and he likes new places.

He found another home in the Rattlesnake and started the process over again. The 70s era home, once adorned with shaggy orange carpet, has been opened up to resemble a ranch-style home with energy-efficient features and recycled products.

The flames in the fireplace highlighted the only item that is orange now: the rich warm tones of wood, vertical grain fir, used for trim throughout the house. They were old bleachers destined for the dump.

And now another project in a place close to home: the Dakota Green Boulevard Restoration. After vowing to restore the abandoned lot, Loken contacted groups, gained support and hired a contractor to remove the asphalt, grinding it into a trail mix for trails in town.

“The removal of that asphalt felt like it was taking off tight underwear. It was just great to see this place return, see the soil return,” he said, smiling.

“He is a great visionary,” said Wallace, his office manager. She explained that he can already see the end result of the project before the first slabs of sod are placed.

Loken hopes to build ecological-friendly, multi-family residences that will be placed adjacent to the restored boulevard and clustered like urban townhouses so there is potential for solar energy. The bike-pedestrian path will provide a connection to suitable transportation.

He said, “I’ve come to since realize that while all these things – non-toxic, low-environmental impact, low extractive influences on the environment – all these things are really important [for green building] – it’s also house size, urban in-fill, multi-family. Basically retooling how we do our cities so that we have fewer transportation needs and we can walk, walkable communities.”

Although there are no houses in Dakota Greens yet, there were changes in the “greens” aspect of the project on that Saturday morning.

More soil had been hauled in, native grasses, shrubs and trees brought. Then the process began of contouring, curbing, berming, raking and shaping what was once an abandoned piece of blacktop.

In the midst of rain and mud, 45 volunteers showed up with gloves and a willingness to work on restoring the boulevard. Loken was among them, in one place then another, digging, directing, measuring, planting, laying sod, and raking.

By the end of the day, a lone patch of grass in one corner of the boulevard spread outward into a sea of green vegetation that covered what was once bare ground. A ray of sun, breaking from the cloudy sky, shone on a single pine tree. It stood in its new home on the boulevard.

“The thing I like the most about it is the community effort and it’s also a restoration project,” Loken said. “It’s about hope, how you can take a dead spot and bring it back to life.”

There’s a twinkle in Loken’s steel-blue eyes when he gazes over the green boulevard. A reflection of the rippling water he peered upon in a place many years ago.

Most of the time, Loken could be many places. But this evening, he is in one place. Skimming the powdery snow with his skis, his working dog, Carly, galloping alongside, Loken weaves throughout the forest. A moon hangs lazily among the branches of the lodgepole pines while a sprinkling of stars sparkle in the midnight sky. They are the only sources of light.

But that’s plenty for him.