California student built cabin with hand tools in 1974; now part of $6m estate

Kenneth Roebbelen’s luxury estate now features a 9,800-sq-ft main house, along with a 2,200-sq-ft recreation centre, an 82-ft Junior Olympic lap pool, a private runway, an aircraft hangar and a helipad, the Sacramento Bee reported. But half a century ago, this sprawling property in the Sacramento area looked different. It started with a small cabin, completely built using hand tools.From a hand-built cabin to an empireKenneth Roebbelen’s father, Hans Roebbelen, bought the Sacramento-area estate in the late 1960s. In 1974, Kenneth Roebbelen graduated from UC Davis; he wanted to avoid dorm living. So when he started to build a cabin, his father had one condition attached to it, which made the project part construction job and part character test.“The rule was I had to only use hand tools, no power tools, no electricity,” Roebbelen said.