CORN, Okla. (KFOR) — The Reimer family has hosted lots of tours over the past few years.
Stacy and Carmen, their two teenagers Abigayle and Garrison, really do have a lot to show; six floors, cool bedrooms below a third floor kitchen.
“We love it,” says Carmen. “Our kids love it.”
The fourth and fifth floors will be a master suite some day.
Standing beside a claw foot bathtub next to a window, Carmen laughs, “Eventually we’ll have a good view here.”
That sixth floor is already a fantastic observatory.
“You can see Cordell and Burns Flat from up here,” she continues.
But to truly appreciate this farm homestead you have to look on the outside.
Carmen cautions, “You can take the kid out of the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the kid.”
Most of it was built inside two existing silos that were here before the family moved back from several years traveling the world.
“This used to be a dairy farm,” she says.
Carmen told us she had a different kind of dream house in mind.
She didn’t know God would have such a good sense of humor about designing this one.
“Sometimes you have dreams about what you think you wan’t,” she says. “And then God has other ideas.”
They moved in on Thanksgiving Day, 2013 after living in trailers on the property for a couple of years.
Stacy and the whole family worked when they could and brought materials without debt.
“We pretty much tried to overbuild everything,” he says, “so we wouldn’t have to worry about structural issues.”
Sweat equity doesn’t begin to describe the challenges they faced framing a house inside two big circles, or joining them together, not to mention cutting windows on a structure never meant to have them.
Stacy explains, “There is a glass or porcelain type covering on them so the won’t deteriorate. So using torches does not work very well.”
The kids are off to college in the Fall, hopefully.
The Reimers have ideas for a deck and, maybe one day, an elevator.
“We enjoy it very much,” chuckles Stacy.
“Except when we have to bring groceries to the third floor,” adds Carmen.
For now they’re loving the stairs and the fact they never had to construct exterior walls or a roof.
Once a home for corn and sileage, feed for cattle, it’s now a fitting home for a family that couldn’t wait to embrace their hometown and their way of life.
“We say God is our architect because we’re really not that smart.”
Stacy Reimer is a math teacher at the Corn Bible Academy.
The family also raises cattle on their spread southwest of town.
