Modern Monticello
Sovereignty, Installed On Your Own Property
What MM Local Is
Modern Monticello started as build guides and a parts library — MM Local is where that becomes hands-on work on your actual property. This isn't a franchise or a crew dispatch; it's Zach, in Charleston, WV, building the same Ogopogo modules, off-grid appliances, and wall/roof systems documented on this site, sized to your land and your budget. If it's in the MM catalog, it can go in your yard.
How It Works
Property Walk
Zach comes out and walks the property with you — grade, sun, water, what you're already working with, what you actually want. No sales pitch, just an honest read on what's possible and what it'd take.
Get Your Plan
There's no fixed package. Zach looks at what's actually going on with your specific property — your land, your budget, what you already have — and tells you what's realistic, pulling from anything in the MM catalog.
We Get It Done
Materials, timeline, and a straight-up quote before anything starts. Build happens on your schedule, and you get the same documentation and build rationale that's on this site — you'll actually understand what's under your own deck.
Everyday Repairs, Too
Toilet running, a light out, something around the house that needs fixing — standard repair work, done right, and explained. You get shown why it broke, not just that it's fixed. The property-walk builds are the main gig, but Zach takes the everyday calls too.
Services
Ogopogo Deck, Walkway & Stair Install
The modular papercrete/geopolymer system, built on-site.
Decking, stair treads, landings, and walkways built from Ogopogo's universal connector system — the same parts library documented in the MM build catalog. Scales from a single garden path to a full wraparound deck.
Wall & Roof System Build
Cordwood, cob, papercrete, straw bale, hempcrete — matched to your build.
Structural and non-structural wall builds pulled from the Wall & Roof Systems catalog, paired with the right roof system for your pitch, climate exposure, and budget. Every material choice comes with its real verification status, not a sales gloss.
Off-Grid Appliance Install
Thermal mass heaters, passive coolers, water catchment, and more.
On-site build and install of MM's off-grid appliance line — masonry heaters, Einstein-cycle passive refrigeration, rain catchment and cistern systems, pedal or hand-powered laundry, wood-fired hot tubs. Sized to whatever fits your property.
Root Cellar & Food Preservation Setup
Want a root cellar but don't want to dig it yourself? Hire it out.
Root cellar construction and canning/fermentation kitchen setups, built around the same preservation methods documented in the MM knowledge base — sized for what you're actually growing and putting up.
Garden & Homestead Systems
Raised beds, plantings layout, and small builds.
Raised bed construction, plantings layout pulled from the MM growing guides, and the smaller homestead builds — chicken coops, rabbit hutches, beehive systems — sized and sited for your actual land.
Property Consult (No Build Yet)
Just want the read, not the crew.
A property walk and written recommendation with no build attached — for anyone still planning, saving up, or wanting a second opinion before committing to anything.
Commissioned & Custom Builds
Beyond the standard service list — a gabion wall built as a design feature instead of just a retaining wall, solar roof coating, hobbit-style ferrocement, a living trellis of cold-hardy kiwi grown right into a new fence line, and more. Nobody else in Kanawha County is offering this kind of work. If you want something nobody else has, bring it up on the property walk.
Who This Is For
The Hands-On Owner
You want to do things yourself, but can't find the time or the extra hands. You don't want the project taken over — you want it started right so you can own the upkeep from there, or a pro standing next to you as an extra set of hands on your own build.
The No-DIY-Ambition Owner
You just want your home improved — no DIY ambitions attached. You still deserve better than "call us, we fix it, goodbye." Done right, explained, with the option to actually upgrade how your property works if you want more than a repair.
The Something-Nobody-Else-Has Owner
A cedar wood-fired hot tub, custom-built for probably less than a boxed one. A working Einstein fridge. A root cellar dug and stocked so your vegetables actually make it through winter. A wooded, overgrown backyard turned into a food forest that feeds your family. This is the stuff people call their friends over to see.
Fire Tower Network
A mesh-networking initiative for off-grid communities — building the list of neighbors and property owners willing to host a node or point-to-point link before the technical build starts. A Fire Tower is an individual, personal build (yours, on your own land) — not an institutional or forestry-coordinated system, and it doesn't need anyone's permission to put one up.
The terrain-mapping and builder-matching tooling for this is still on the drawing board — see Coming Soon below. For now, this is about making contact.
Community Building
The sweat-equity and apprenticeship side of MM Local — trading labor and skill directly with other builders in the area, rather than hiring everything out. If you'd rather learn a system hands-on alongside the people already running it than pay for a finished job, this is that door.
Local trade partners already in the network: Nick, John, and Shaun. Reach out through Contact Us below if you'd like to join in.
Coming Soon
Still on the drawing board — not bookable yet, but here's what's next for MM Local.
Service Area
Charleston, WV
Kanawha · Putnam · Boone · Clay · Roane · Jackson · Fayette
Home base is Kanawha County. Neighboring counties are generally in range for a property walk — if you're further out, ask anyway; it depends on the scope of the build.
Request a Walk
Tell Zach a little about your property and what you have in mind. He reads every one of these himself.