Making a meadow in Glen Mills
Big Run, the home of Kevin Nolan and Mary Fran McLaughlin, “is all about outdoor living.”
When Kevin Nolan stumbled upon the For Sale sign in a rural section of Glen Mills in 2009, he was intrigued. The dilapidated, abandoned house seemed unlivable, but it sat upon seven acres of land.
“I’d been looking for a diamond in the rough for years,” recalled Nolan, the recently retired owner of Nolan Painting in Havertown. “But this diamond needed more than paint.”
He and his wife, Mary Fran McLaughlin, were living in Haverford with their youngest son, who was still in high school. But Nolan had a vision for the sprawling property, which he would bring to life once they became empty nesters.
He attended a speech at Penn State Brandywine by Larry Weaner, a landscape designer well known for designing meadows, and asked Weaner to come see the property. That day, plans for a three-acre meadow took form.
They went on to plant wildflowers, including penstemon, aster, bee balm, joe-pye weed, coneflower, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, and bluestem grass.
“Perennials take three years,” Nolan said. “Year one they sleep, year two they creep, and year three they leap.”
In 2011, the couple moved into the rundown house. It was lacking more than the typical fixer-upper — no heat, no water.
“It was like camping,” he said. “We used a porta potty, and a gym membership for showers.”
They hired an architect, and over the next seven months they built an entirely new house from the ground up: a contemporary rustic rancher amid the meadow, which was just beginning to take shape.
The front of the 3,200-square-foot, cedar-sided house features the main living area, including the primary bedroom, living room, dining room, and kitchen. The home’s back also has a lower-level basement with three additional bedrooms looking out to the meadow.
Throughout the house, no fewer than 40 windows provide views of the surrounding nature.
Nolan served as general contractor, and with the help of his Nolan Painting crew, he completed all of the interior trim work, painting, and staining inside and out.
The home uses geothermal energy, a renewable resource that comes from the Earth’s heat. It came with specific building requirements including extra insulation, but is extremely cost-effective and requires no petroleum.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to build something more sustainable and we got a 30% tax credit on the entire heating and cooling system,” said Nolan.
They named the home Big Run, after the creek of the same name that starts on the property. Nolan, an avid runner who has run a marathon in all 50 states, has plenty of nature-filled routes to choose from, including trails at the adjacent Ridley Creek State Park.
Once the pair moved into the new house, they tore the original home down to the foundation and built a barn, complete with an office, man cave, and storage for a tractor and other equipment.
Nolan and McLaughlin spend as much time as possible outdoors, often enjoying the meadow from the home’s 110-foot wraparound porch. The meadow has hosted four weddings — for three of their children and a family friend — each couple choosing a different spot at which to exchange vows.
It is also where their three grandchildren play hide-and-seek among the trails Nolan carved, and where Addy, their 13-year-old Labradoodle, frolics in the flowers.
The meadow’s bold colors change throughout the year: white and blue in spring, purple and yellow in summer, blue and yellow in fall. Wildlife, including insects, birds, and small animals, live in the tall plantings much of the year.
Nolan and McLaughlin care for the meadow themselves, only cutting it back once in the spring after most of the insect eggs have hatched. They stay on top of the invasive species, including Canadian thistle, keeping them cut back before they seed.
Nolan especially enjoys tinkering through the property on his tractor, digging out fallen trees, clearing paths, and moving rocks. He even created a small pond.
“Every year in the fall, I go through the meadow and collect seeds to use in the future,” he said. “I also collect praying mantis egg cases so they don’t get damaged during mowing, and then I put them back in the field to help control insects.”
While the couple appreciate their home’s interior, it’s the views that are most important.
“This house is all about outdoor living,” Nolan said. “There just aren’t a lot of meadows like this. It’s unique.”
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