The Peters' Pickleplex

This one's been a long time coming, and sorry for the delay!

Brooke was able to open her training facility at the Peters' homestead in Late August of 2024.  She's been actively drilling and preparing for tournaments since then, and we've had quite a few folks come and play from CTPA, Franklin, Oil City, Clarion, Hermitage, Titusville, Ohio and more!  I'm sure they're be plenty more visitors to come, as we actively have pickleball friends show up and play for hours on the new courts.

This is more a story, of the journey, building Brooke her dream training facility and it all started in the late summer or fall of 2023.  We have plenty property to build such a facility, but on day one it was more of a dream than a reality.  As we discussed the consideration of me building her courts, I was thinking big.  Along the way, Brooke had to slow me down, come out of the clouds and build something that could be functional and reasonable in Western PA.  We knew the courts needed to be indoor as you only get 5 months a year with semi descent weather and outdoor courts just wouldn't get utilized if we went that route.

My original plans were for a 6 court indoor facility and I was already thinking too big as she said no one would come to our courts in the sticks and it would be a wasted effort.  Also, to enclose a 6 court facility, the option in type of building I would have to build was not a style she wanted to stare at, out our front window for the next 40 years.  Brooke told me she only wanted one court, but I was stuck on 6.  My decision was quickly made for me as I brought in a Smith Excavating to give me a quick quote on the footprint.  Unfortunately we are blessed with a 5% grade and lots of spring water on our property.  The original location was an old gas well pad we had on our property, that had a nice shale road.  The unfortunate part, after having Brad shoot the location, was I needed 72 loads of shale just to level the area needed for the 5-6 courts and building.  I wasn't anticipating that much money on just site prep.

I quickly shifted to another area on my property that I figured we could remove dirt instead of add.  I also grounded myself and compromised with Brooke and agreed to build a 2 court indoor facility instead of 5 or 6 courts.  This was mainly because of the location of the new spot and the room we had to work with.  My original design was for a 60x70' building with a minimum of 20' ceilings.  If you know Brooke, one of many shots she has in her arsenal is a lob, and I didn't want ceiling height to be an issue.

After getting all the appropriate permits, we broke ground and it took about 2 days to level and prep the area for asphalt.  Smith took out 52 loads and put it on my property where I originally wanted to build the courts.  I definitely have options for outdoor courts in the future now!  I wanted to get the asphalt put down before the plants shut down in October. By September 21, 2023 we were ready for asphalt.  I brought in a local asphalt company, Hagar Paving and they had our pad laid and ready to use.  Brooke was quite fine with this 62x72' slab and just having outdoor courts, but I had just begun on my master plans.  Working with Hagar, I knew if I were to put a building around these courts, I'd be driving on it so it needed to be thick enough to handle equipment. I went with 2.5" of heavy aggregate and 1.5" of fine for nice clean smooth surface, with a 4" compacted finish.

Over the next month we enjoyed the nice October fall days and played on two frog-taped courts. 

Meanwhile I was contacting just about every type of building manufacture out there.  By far the most economical was a hoop barn.  This would provide plenty of head space and height needed, but Brooke did not want to stare at a big tent in our side yard.  She told me if I'm putting a building over the courts she wanted metal.  The next option, and most cost effective was a pole barn, but the problem I faced was ceiling height.  Traditional trusses with bottom plates, meant I had to have very high side walls.  Even if I went with a scissor truss, it was hard to find something that would span 62' and have the height I needed.  Since I knew what I was getting in to, and I was the one taking this project on and building it myself, I'd have a hard time setting 20' walls myself and 35 trusses at that height.  I moved away from pole barns and looked into carpool buildings.  You know the kind that build those little one stall garages in a couple hours? Most of those companies will build super structures and I have to admit I did like the fact that they would install it.  What was not good, was the were not rated structures, nor required a foundation.   I had to find a building that met all the code requirements for what I was intending on using it for.  I next looked I red-iron I-beam buildings. Of course, each building went up in price as I looked.  I liked the true all metal style building, but all the red-iron buildings were more than 6 months out and required some serious foundation work.  I then found the most expensive building I could find, but it checked all the boxes.  I wanted a building with a free-span truss that would span 72', a 25' ceiling at the peak, pier foundations I could drill in and concrete and in a kit that I could assemble.  World Wide Steel Buildings from MO fit the bill and their engineers and sales team worked with me to design the perfect building.  I put down a downpayment with a delivery date of the Made in USA, lifetime warranty building to be delivered a week before Christmas.

Yes that was Brooke's Christmas present that year.  It was coming by semi-load and I was to have a forklift ready with 5000# lift capacity on day of delivery.  I knew my son, Haden would be home from college on Christmas break and he could help me offload the truck.

With that ordered I had a short window to get my engineered drawings submitted for my building permit and get the foundations dug and poured with a 30 day curing period, prior to the building arrival.  Keep in mind, it's mid-November and hunting season as well! Brooke's not the only one with hobbies, and one of mine happens to be sitting out in the cold waiting for a deer to come by.  I believe I was in Ohio, hanging from a tree, when the drawings came in and I submitted them to our inspector.  After talking with the inspector, we agreed on 24" piers for my 12 load bearing supports and 18" piers for the other 11 gable supports.  I made the call to Bobcat of Clarion and had a nice E42 Excavator rental delivered with an auger attachment and both bits, to drill the 40+" deep holes.  I spent the next few days cutting the asphalt, drilling out the foundation holes and digging in a french drains around the building.  Once the inspector "Okay'd" the holes, I had concrete in route.  I did enlist the help of a couple friends to help wheelbarrow concrete to 12 of the 23 holes we couldn't reach with the truck.  It took about 11 yards of concrete and my piers were set.  I had a nice window of about 25 days for the concrete to cure, but the temps were cool, and we were getting mix of snow and rain and I had to cover the finished surfaces.  I had the excavator rented for a week and I sure moved a lot of dirt, installed drains and drilled in 23 holes.  It was worth every penny.

I contacted United Rental out of Butler to have a 6K 4x4 oscillating 40' teloscopic telehandler and a scissor man lift delivered a day before my building was to arrive from MO.  My plan was to use the telehandler to offload steel and set my trusses, and the man lift to get me in the air to affix the perlins and sidewall girts.  My building arrived on December 20th and of course it had to snow the night before, only to make the offload process a little more sketchy. This massive load of steel took Haden and I about 2 hours to unload and stage in about 2 acres of my field.  I had Haden running around like crazy attaching lift straps and moving stringers of wood while I enjoyed the warmth of the telehandler cab.  I did let him move a couple loads, as I couldn't have all the fun.  I told truck driver I was sorry, and he said "sorry heck! You boys made quick work of that! It took them 8 hrs to load it on my truck".  The largest loads were the 38' sheets of metal for the roof all bundled up.  Worldwide steel had sent a great "how-to" book on unloading and for one of the first times, I'm glad this guy read the instructions!

I spent the next day laying out the 72 holes that needed to drilled into the foundation for anchors.  These were all 5/8 or 3/4" anchors that needed drilled in 10" deep.  I had an engineer buddy show up after I laid out the anchor locations, and he wanted to "help" and set-up his laser guided contraption and after an hour of setup found I was in square and only off by 1/8" over that 72x62' span where I used a simple 100' tape!  I think his contraption was off an 1/8" but needless to say we were ready to start drilling and setting the load bearing uprights.  Haden and I started to set the uprights on Dec 23rd and by lunchtime we had all 12 load bearing 16' tall uprights set and walls squared.  I gave him the rest of the day off as I commenced to attaching the sidewall girts at 2' centers in the manlift.  My self-tapping screw nightmare began!

I gave Haden the 24th and 26th off but on the 27th we started to assemble the first truss, which consisted of piecing together 4 very large and very heavy parts that needed bolted together.  After about an hour we had the first truss assembled in the driveway and were ready to set a 72' truss that was probably 2000+ pounds, 25'  the air. The attachment points were at 16' but I had to lift at the center of the truss which peaked at 25'.  Thank god a neighbor and buddy of mine stopped off just as I was getting ready to pick the first truss.  With me in the telehandler and Haden on a tag line, it was definitely a 3 man job, not just a 2 man job.  I inched my way in, jumping out of the telehandler every 8', laying down 3/4" plywood, in front of the telehandler, so I wouldn't mark up or sink in the beautiful asphalt.  I had a 20,000 pound machine, with a 2000 pound truss swinging 25' in the air.  Needless to say that first truss was a bit of a nail biter to say the least! 

We got that first truss set and held in place with some straps and boards and I made some calls.  I knew I needed a couple extra hands to get the next 5 trusses set.  The next day a couple buddies, and my father arrived and we started to assemble truss #2.  It went much quicker with the extra help. By the end of day 2 all 6 trusses were set and several roof perlins held it all together.  We also installed the 11 gable uprights and I had a shell of a building! I now was on a mission to install all the roof perlins, and sidewall girts.  I spent the first week of January 2024 working in the evenings and weekdays in the coldest of temperatures assembling the framework, piece by piece.  A solo guy working 16-25' in the air, going up and down sure finds out how to do things, especially when the shortest part is 12' long and made of steel. I got a week of work in and we were then headed to Dallas so Brooke could play in the WTP Nationals.  We all know how she faired there, bringing back 2 Golds, 2 National titles and a Silver.

When we got back from Nationals, I went back to screwing in the framework on January 15th. I managed to get all the perlins, girts, windrods and bracing installed in those next two weeks. There were points where I had to shovel paths of snow for the scissor lift to move. Some days or nights were more productive than others. To say my arms were sore from running self-tapping screws into the metal framework, was an understatement! Those of you that play 3 or 4 hours of pickleball and wake up sore, know that feeling.  Where your body doesn't want to move….yeah that was me, but every day, and I kept going because I knew the end result was going to be worth all the pain!  In about 4 weeks of physical work, the building was now ready for insultation and outside metal!

February rolled around, and I installed all the trim work. I remember during all of this being very concerned about my electrical service pole feeding my house.  It was within 10' of the building and too close for us to cut the bank back.  After about the 3rd time the wall caved in on my courts I and having to hand dig clay and mud, I had to have that pole moved so I could cut the bank back further and avoid cave-ins.  I just knew if I left it how it was I would forever have water issues and the bank erode into the wall of my building.  I reached out to my electric company and had them come to set a new pole.  Of course in the meantime I had to cut down about 4 trees for the new service pole and that took me away from the building. My arms thanked me from running screws in with a drill, to running a chainsaw!

 About mid-February, I remember rolling out the first 4'x16' of insulation on the eve sidewall.  This was during a 3 day weekend over President's day. The wind was blowing so hard that insulation stood out like a flag blowing in the wind!  The insulation gets sandwiched between the girts/perlins and the outside metal.  So I used double-sided tape to keep the insulation stretched tight, I'd run the manlift down, quickly run around outside, grab a 16' piece of tin that I had predrilled and slap it against the wall and set a few screws.  I'd run back up top, get it squared and run a few screws in.  I then would go back outside on a 12' step ladder and start running in self-tapping screws.  Each sheet of metal covered 3' and had 40-80 screws per sheet, depending on how long it was! Screwing tin on isn't the hardest of things, but a solo worker pre-drilling holes, manhandling 16' sheets and trying to keep insulation stretch tight sure made things go slow. I believe it took me 3 days to complete one 62' wall and about 9' on the other side and that was after the third day, Will showed up to lend a hand!  I definitely appreciate that, so thanks Will!  Of course there was snow and it was slipping and sliding all around and mother nature didn't help with making life easy.  I'm now calculating in my head at this pace it will be 2-3 weeks of labor to get all the tin on.  It's going to be a rough month, but little did I know!

The next day Brooke had an appointment to get PRP injections and I was to be her chauffer.  This was the day that set me back. In the middle of this procedure as I'm holding Brooke's hand watching needle after needle go in her knee, I find myself laying on the floor looking at up at a doctor yelling "who are you, where are you at?" I'm like, Josh…in the Dr's office and please get off me! What a circus as I'd call it, as the EMT's arrive wanting to take me to Pittsburgh. I'm certainly fine, don't want to go anywhere and they make Brooke convince me to go get checked out because who knows what really happened to me?  My first ride in an ambulance and I wasn't impressed. They run a number of tests on me, and I'm telling the doctors I'm fine, I just fainted but my ankle hurts a little.  They never checked that, then one thing that does hurt on me.  Brooke arrives at the hospital to collect me, and I drive us home after they keep me for a few more hours of wasted day.  My foot is a wreck and I'm hobbling around like some dumb person who just sprained his ankle.  I head into the office the next day and it's really hurting so I managed to go to a local chiropractor who looks things over and does some treatments.  I go back Thursday and Friday he orders an X-ray.  It wasn't until Monday morning I looked at my results online and saw "Fracture of Fibula".  Well that's not good, here I am walking around on a dang broken ankle for 6 days.  I immediately contacted an orthopedic and they were able to get me in and get a set of crutches and an air-cast for me.  The chiropractor that ordered the x-ray still hasn't called me, to this day, to tell me I have a broken bone! Of all the dumb things I've done in my life, and the crazy stuff I have been doing in the past month erecting her building, leave it to me fainting to break my ankle!

The next 3 months sucked as I was non-weight bearing, her building was on hold, and we're slated to go to the US open in 6 weeks in Naples, FL.  Needless to say I was not happy.  At first I was in the denial stage, bitter and angry because I had some mythical timeline of 3 more weeks of work. I then went to acceptance, as there was no timeline and that building would be there waiting for me to get better.  I was able to get a couple knee-walkers and be more mobile.  I was a burden to Brooke, as it's amazing how you realize you need both feet, only when you don’t have both feet.  There was talks of me not attending the trip to Naples, but I assured her I would not be a burden.  In fact we were able to board the planes first because of my silly accident, so maybe there was one positive to it. I wish I could tell you how many people asked me "Pickleball Accident?" at the US Open as I ran around on my little knee-walker scooter… when the real answer was, "no, I fainted" lol!  The story is funny now, and Brooke loves telling everyone how silly her husband was braking his ankle by fainting.

By the First week of June, I was able to walk with a brace and when given the greenlight I went back to work on the building.  In a week's time, I got the other eve side done, and the driveway gable side installed.  I was smart and called United Rental and got a 4x4 telescoping manlift. No more ladders, and this piece of equipment really helped me get to the hard places, plus those 25' sheets of tin on the gable ends.  The following week, some of my coworkers showed up and we got the other gable side on and then started the roof.  The roof insulation consisted of 6'x 75' rolls of insulation that I had to roll from one side up over the peak to the other, stretch it out then lay the tin down and screw it tight to the perlins.  The roof tin was over 37' long and it took some engineering to get it on the roof without buckling.  I used a taco technique and built a little cantilever on the manlift to hold the tin.  It only took 2 people, one to drive the lift and basically crane it up and then me to drag the 37' sheet all the way up and start screwing.  Each sheet had about 90 screws, so as I was on the roof fastening the tin, I had a buddy on the ground prepping the next sheet.  The first night after work, we were able to get the first two starter sheets on.  Because of the insulation the whole roof had to be installed as we went, versus doing one side at a time, like a traditional roof.  As the second night rolled around, we were able to get 4 sheets installed.  Each night went faster and  faster and within a week, the entire building was completely done, with outside metal and trim.  My estimate of 2-3 weeks was spot on. Too bad I had to push it back 3 months because of a broken ankle. Actually I believe me on that angle roof screwing in 1000's of screws was the best physical therapy one could ask for.  I was amazed at how square everything ended up. Metal sure doesn't bend like wood and for practically a solo guy constructing this building by himself, it sure came together nicely.

The next step was to install the 3 large rollup garage doors.  I have 2, 10x10 doors on the eve side and a 12x14' door on the gable side. I'm not sure I'd like to explain how I got those up there, but lets just say if it was a commercial job and OSHA showed up, it wouldn't have been pretty.  Brooke stopped asking questions on how I did this stuff months ago and that was definitely another redneck engineering job, with the scissor lift into a make-shift crane, to make it happen. With the building fully enclosed, I was now able to work on the outside.

I had a buddy who just bought a used mini-excavator to build his garage and he was nice enough to let me borrow it.  I spent the next week digging the bank back to the new electric pole and doing some drain work.  When I thought I had everything just about done, we had a torrential downpour for hours on end, and mud came flowing inside the building covering 70% of the asphalt.  I was almost defeated at that point.  Luckily as I stood out in the rain I could see how the water was flowing and what I needed to do with that excavator to divert water.  I spent the next few nights cleaning the courts, pressure washing, removing old drains, installing 600' of new drains and having seamless gutters installed. I also cut a utility ditch from the house and ran conduit for electric and some gas line for a future heater.

I then sealed the bottom of the entire building making it water tight!  It rained several more times and the building was dry.  All the outside work I had done was paying off.  Just in time to seal the asphalt and paint the courts!  I'll have to give a big shoutout to Bill McCollough for giving me a hand picking up the paint.  I decided to go with SportMaster/PickleMaster paint and sand out of New Castle. After all the calculations and working with them it was going to be 2 full truck-loads of 5 gallon buckets of Acrylic resurfacer, RTU Base, Sand and Color tint.  Bill and I both took a load back to the courts and unloaded.  I then spent the next week resurfacing and painting the courts.  Bill was also nice enough to pick up the line machine rental and drop it off to Brooke.

Brooke did help paint the lines, and did a marvelous job!

There's plenty of other stories, from the lighting, electric to BAF (BIG ASS FAN - yes it's called that) installation, but I'm sure I've bored you by now with all these details.

Once Brooke started using her courts, I thought I was done for a while.  She gave me a couple months off, but she said she wanted heat installed this year. So when the end of November rolled around I purchased a 300K BTU resonator heater.  This 300 pound unit needed installed 16' up in the air and I was able to borrow some scaffolding from my father's friend.  I built a bracket and used an electric winch to get it in the ceiling.  I then plumbed all the gas line in from the house, cut a 6" exhaust hole through the wall and had her heat before Christmas!

The final touch was a Christmas gift to Brooke, and a projector that shoots her logo down on mid-court.  Since all the rental equipment and scaffolding was returned, I made Brooke hold the bottom of a 25' extension ladder as I installed her projector, way up inside those trusses.  I think it gives the building a nice "Pop"

I had about 3.5-4 months total labor in the building, and it took every moment of free time I've had.  I didn't get an official count but I know I put in somewhere between 10 and 15,000 self tapping screws into the assembly of it. One thing's for sure, I put every screw into that building. It's been a great adventure and I know she loves it.  It sure is nice, walking 30 seconds out to it and playing!  Brooke was instrumental into picking the colors, and painting the lines and holding that ladder.  So when she say's "we" built those pickleball courts. She wasn't kidding!

Brooke now has her dream Pickleball facility just steps from our backdoor. She can now train, drill and play at her leisure and I'm so thankful I could help provide her with this to better her game. I have every faith in the world she'll continue to climb to the top!