Their shared vocation influences design here, from the gently curved entryway to the tree perfectly framed in the spare bedroom's window. Smith, 69, who bought 18 acres and began work on the house in 1977, envisioned "a cross between a loft and a cabin in the woods.
"I wanted it to be open and have the expansiveness of a loft, but also wanted it to have the intimacy and coziness of a cabin."
It was a 14-year construction process; the first four years, Smith lived in his truck.
"My kitchen drain was a garden hose with duct tape, and I had a two-burner hot plate and a toaster oven. Yet somehow I had a sit-down dinner for 14," he said.
It didn't help that some of the more extreme ideas of Smith's partner-in-design, engineer John Ringel, didn't always work, such as the fan ducts that were supposed to pump hot air from the fireplace under the floor to heat the kitchen and dining room. "We were sort of patrons of the experimental building arts at that time," Smith said.
Yet Ringel, cofounder of the Stockton-based Jersey Devil design-build team, successfully designed the passive-solar components of the house - considered revolutionary in the '80s. Three saw-toothed roofs that frame five-foot-high windows control the angle and amount of sun that enters the house, which manages the interior temperature without fans or other mechanical means.
"John figured all of that part out," Smith said, "but I designed all of the interior spaces, picked out all of the materials and took over as acting general contractor when John was done."
