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On a South Carolina Farm, a House Born From a College Promise
A couple and their architect friend built a family home that celebrates hyperlocal building materials.
When Joe Filippelli was completing architecture school at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College in 2013, his classmate Peyton Coles made him a promise.
“Peyton said, ‘Joe, if you ever start your own office, you can build my house,’” Mr. Filippelli said. “People joke about stuff like that, but you never think it’s going to be real.”
The friends had studied buildings together, but by the time they graduated, Mr. Peyton had realized he didn’t actually want to work as an architect. After growing up on a farm in Virginia, he decided to pursue a career in agricultural technology.
For years, Mr. Filippelli didn’t think much about that conversation, as college friends routinely make such grand declarations that are eventually forgotten. But within a few months of establishing his own architecture firm, North House Architects, in Grand Haven, Mich., in early 2020,Mr. Coles called — he was ready for that house.
By then, Mr. Coles had married Peanut Belk, and the couple had moved to Wild Hope Farm, an organic produce and flower operation that Ms. Belk runs in Chester, S.C. They were in the process of purchasing a 28-acre portion of the 400-acre property owned by Ms. Belk’s parents for $100,000so they could build a house of their own on the farm.
