Neo-Shaker Values

We lay in bed in our first home. He was holding his left arm crooked, forearm straight up, palm bent back and opened upward as if he were holding a crystal ball or perhaps a great sandwich he’d built and was admiring from all sides before consuming.

I peered into his empty palm. “What do you have there?” I asked.
He rotated it toward me. “This is the front door,” he said. We were talking about the house we would build.

“The ground will come here on this side,” he lowered and rotated the hand again for my inspection, “and here on this side. There will be a swale here behind the house” he gestured with the other hand, “and the grass will come straight up over the roof.”

I could begin to see it. That was the late 70’s. Copies of Mother Earth News could be found by our couch, in the bathroom and under the bed. We were going to have a house with a grass roof. Yippee!

We had no architect or contractor. We had one summer to get something under roof that we could live in. We had $22,000 and after the long driveway was bull-dozed and graveled, the well drilled and the site leveled, we had $14,000 left to build a home.

The first summer we got under cover and divided the space into two small rooms for sleeping and the rest we left open as combined living, dining and kitchen. We made the ceiling 12 feet at center and cut oaks for support posts. The floor was concrete and still is. Windows and cabinets came from an assortment of buildings being demolished. I painted them to match and put on new hardware.

We built an outhouse of rough sawed wood. The inside was painted white and I made a sunburst stained glass window for it that splashed afternoon rays around the interior with the full spectrum of colors. It was actually a rather dazzling place to be; with its odd assortment of olfactory, kinesthetic and visual opportunities. It was a good place to ponder paradox. Especially in the warmer months.

The second summer we doubled the size of the house adding a bathroom, large multi-purpose room, small walk-in closet and laundry-tool room. A wide hallway gave access from one large room to the other. Eventually I built an carved glass partition between the two.

We did not need a lot of space but we wanted a spacious feeling. I set up the flow of rooms and window placement so you could see through the entire house north-east to southwest. Outside and inside seem all in the same space because of the many windows on three sides and the lack of neighbors. We also added five skylights.

I notice and enjoy the creative energy that seems to flow in architectural spaces that are not designed to a particular style. I’m also most comfortable without a lot of self-conscious artiness around me.

Our house was not meant to look eccentric. It was created in response to its setting. It was created in gratitude. It was created with great frugality. I wanted it to please without impressing. Maybe you could say it was built with Shaker values but not in typical Shaker style. I don’t know. I’m too close to it. I do know that the scriptural imperative from Colossians 3:23 was, and is, always in my heart as I work. “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;” And though I’m quoting scripture here, I do not mean to be stating anything about my own spiritual values. There is something about this hill that just draws that kind of feeling out of the heart.