Fingerprints on a Mountaintop

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Everyone who helped was invited to contribute something personal to the house. We learned to loosen our control. We realized that if we asked our children or friends to lay a rock window, compose stones for the floor, or do any other work, we had to allow them freedom and accept what they did even if it did not agree with our aesthetic sense. One daughter painted purple-and-orange-striped gates, another painted creatures on top of our pasture fenceposts. Our son fabricated a revolving copper and iron butterfly to serve as a lightning rod above our sleeping loft, and another daughter inlaid stone mosaics on the outside walls. Hundreds of flat stones were lugged up from the nearby Toe River, and the heartshaped stones were embedded into the entrance.

We both share a commitment to and enthusiasm for natural, organic, and "feely" surfaces and textures, and we both love textiles. If we had been thinking standard construction, we could have easily purchased standard doors, cupboards, drawers, or closings. But these are areas in which we have a special interest and, indeed, a special authority . . . by virtue of our many years of experience as craftsmen. We wanted to represent our particular concerns and skills. Louise has spent a lifetime working with handmade textiles, so it was natural for her to translate her skills into architectural solutions. She made textile closings for all the cupboards, doors, and partitions. The kitchen cabinets have textile fronts, and a coat closet has a vel vet applique coat which opens up to give access to the closet. The "lace-lady" dressing room door is made of black velveteen appliqued with old lace. The back side of the piece is a freehanging textile of pockets in varying sizes and shapes which hold socks, underwear, jewelry, and belts. The interior has become our dance of fiber.

We started the second structure as a shelter for firewood, but with time and whimsy it grew into a woodshed/ carport, as well as into an apartment village for bluebirds. Like the main structure it has a curved roof, topped by a cupola birdhouse.

The third structure was an experiment in Surewall. We troweled it on over an armature of metal lath until we arrived at a roof form that looked something like a giant toadstool. The bubble roof is cantilevered over a rectangular base which is set four feet off the floor. Inside, it is like being in a floating dome.

We planted a huge vegetable garden, but spring winds uprooted a few of the tender shoots. We decided to protect our vegetables with a friendship wall made from shards contributed by neighboring craftsmen. Parts of ceramic bowls and teapots, glass goblets, bits of enamel and metal—even a piece of antique silver all found their way into our garden wall. We were given so many shards that some of them were used for mosaics on walls and floors of the house, while others went into a countertop. Like the vegetables, the garden wall is still growing.

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