Once upon a time, Christian Christensen—aka “The Ideas Guy,” aka life and business partner of Debra “The Details Guy” Christensen, aka son of coffee manager “Big Chris” Christensen—thought he would be a pig farmer. He spent his 19th year on an acreage being just that, until he realized how bored he was. “I just wasn’t very good at it.” (This is not to disparage pig farmers, but it wasn't his calling.) 

After he abandoned farming, Christian got a job working construction, which he liked. But there was still something missing. Then one day on the job site, during a hot summer day, a car pulled up and a man got out and walked around the job talking with the supervisor about the design and what he wanted changed and then got back in his air-conditioned car. When he learned the man was the owner/developer, he realized he was on the wrong side of the business. He quit the next day.

Still, there were lots of twists and detours on his road. “In 1999, I did my first building before Bluestone. . . I bought the building that Sarah Joslyn had her newspaper business in. I took all the money I had and hired architects and started to design some loft apartments. Right in the middle of that project, there was a big story in the newspaper that Omaha was going to build a new Convention Center. Right where my building was.” Luckily, the city changed locations. So his first project avoided demise before it even started.

In 2001, he and Debra started Bluestone. At the outset, they developed what they call the Christensen Manifesto: “When we get up in the morning, before our feet hit the floor, think about the day. If we don't love what we're going to do, stay in bed.” Even so, about five days into their first big project, the deal fell apart. Then they found another project, and they've been building ever since. 

Traveling is very important to the Christensens, and they are strongly inclined towards experience. “As a family, it’s about seeing other places and people, understanding first hand what it’s like to be there, as opposed to just getting the information from a textbook. . . As a couple, our favorite spot for the last 20 years has been Santa Fe. We hang at a Japanese spa wearing kimonos, read and relax after a morning hike and before we tour the art galleries.”

Christian’s journey to Bluestone Development started in childhood with his favorite book, Andrew Henry’s Meadow. The hero is a little boy who loves to invent all kinds of elaborate contraptions, and one day he runs away to build his own home. Soon, other children join him in the meadow, and he builds each of them the perfect house: the girl who loves birds gets a treehouse, the boy who loves to fish gets a boathouse, etc. Andrew Henry loved his work and only wanted to make people homes that fit their lives. It’s no surprise that Christian still looks to his childhood hero for inspiration.

Now Christian wakes every morning between 4 and 4:15 to read for a couple of hours before taking on the day. He prefers 20th-century authors and poets who write of a time before the internet, email, cell phones, and social media. “I don't want to read about modern life. Older life feels more authentic.” A current favorite is poet, novelist, and memoirist Jim Harrison, whose first publication was in the 1960s; his last book of poetry was published in 2016, the year of his death. “I love how he writes about nature, about how humans interact with nature. All of his characters are very much into nature, they're a part of it.”. Christian’s day ends every night with hot chocolate, topped with homemade whip cream (made by Christian) and an o so slight twirl of chocolate drizzle.

When asked what’s next for him to work on that falls on the personal side- “I want to better understand poetry. “I recently purchased a poetry text book written by on of my favorite authors / professors who has since passed. I am hoping through his previous teachings I can reach a level of appreciation and understanding of all poetry.”

When asked what book he would choose if he could only have one book for the rest of his life, he begged for two. One is his first and last favorite book, Andrew Henry. The other, Life Work, is a memoir by poet Donald Hall, a meditation on the importance of doing work that you love, whether it’s farming, baking, or building. “One thing I realized is that I have my personal interests, my reading and writing, and I have my marriage, my children, my family. Outside of those, the big chunk of life is your body of work. And I love the work.”