My Houzz: Joyful, Earth-Conscious Home in Vermont
An architect blends green construction, fine craftsmanship and profuse art in his dream home near Vermont's Lake Champlain
Mary Prince
March 8, 2012
The Jimi Hendrix song “Third Stone from the Sun," from the 1967 album Are You Experienced, inspired Ted Montgomery so much that he named his senior thesis after it. It also inspired the name of the Ten Stones community, located a few miles from Lake Champlain, Vermont, where Montgomery lives and works as owner and principal architect of Groundswell Architects. He's also an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont.
He describes Ten Stones as an "intentional" community and a "suburb with a soul.” Its energy-efficient, ecological and aesthetically ergonomic homes are situated around a common green.
“Elegance doesn’t mean money," Montgomery says. "It just means how efficiently you can design something. This home is the result of 25 years of pent-up dream-house energy.” Montgomery built the home in 1997 with his wife, Sarah, a graphic designer, photographer and artist who passed away last year. He adds, “It was pure, unbridled joy for us to build.”
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Ted Montgomery and his son
Location: Charlotte, Vermont
Size: 3,000 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 separate studios
That's interesting: The home is part of an 85-acre community of 50 people in 16 houses, cofounded by Montgomery.
He describes Ten Stones as an "intentional" community and a "suburb with a soul.” Its energy-efficient, ecological and aesthetically ergonomic homes are situated around a common green.
“Elegance doesn’t mean money," Montgomery says. "It just means how efficiently you can design something. This home is the result of 25 years of pent-up dream-house energy.” Montgomery built the home in 1997 with his wife, Sarah, a graphic designer, photographer and artist who passed away last year. He adds, “It was pure, unbridled joy for us to build.”
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Ted Montgomery and his son
Location: Charlotte, Vermont
Size: 3,000 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 separate studios
That's interesting: The home is part of an 85-acre community of 50 people in 16 houses, cofounded by Montgomery.
The first floor features an open floor plan. This is the view from the front entry area into the living room. The dining area sits to the left just beyond the staircase, and the kitchen peeks out from behind. Double doors to the garden room lie on both sides of the fireplace. Family photos hang on the stairway wall.
The first floor of the home and the two studios are wheelchair accessible. All doors are three feet wide, and the walls are concrete. Ted designed and fabricated the home's furniture, cabinetry, light fixtures, countertops and fireplace from copper, hardwood, soft woods, fabric, plastic, MDO (medium density overlay) plywood, nontoxic finishes and recyclable materials.
The first floor of the home and the two studios are wheelchair accessible. All doors are three feet wide, and the walls are concrete. Ted designed and fabricated the home's furniture, cabinetry, light fixtures, countertops and fireplace from copper, hardwood, soft woods, fabric, plastic, MDO (medium density overlay) plywood, nontoxic finishes and recyclable materials.
One of Montgomery's University of Vermont students relaxes on the couch. The sculpture over the Plexiglas case reads "Cinema Bijou."
Furnishings and colors create whimsy throughout the home. Old cane chairs and a mahogany top become a folding coffee table.
The couches were styled on a CAD system, then the MDO plywood parts were printed full size for fabrication. A local craftsman fabricated the cushions. Each couch can come unbolted into three separate, smaller seats (each with four casters), and the backs of all the couches have storage bins.
The lamps are made from copper piping with purchased shades and compact fluorescent bulbs.
The lamps are made from copper piping with purchased shades and compact fluorescent bulbs.
Montgomery repurposed a green ash tree that grew by the front door into this charming kitchen island counter. He had the tree sawn onsite and took it to a friend’s wood shop for planing and joining. Custom-built storage bins hold cooking magazines.
The kitchen countertops are made of copper. “Copper is an affordable elegance," Montgomery says. "It is a very recyclable, reusable material.” The kitchen features a 25-year-old, industrial-strength Vulcan stove and a Jenn-Air refrigerator, and the painted cabinetry is made from formaldehyde-free particleboard.
The cozy dining area segues to the unique copper staircase.
Montgomery's daughter, Rosie, inherited her father's flair for design and created this art piece, which hangs to the left of the stairs above a copper lamp. The piece references Snow White and was done in Rosie's first year at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
The home's main radiant heat source comes from a propane gas boiler and forced hot-water coils under 5-inch-thick slab concrete floors. The stair treads are made of green ash with stained plywood trim.
The master bedroom looks out to a garden room and an outdoor pond. It includes a small attached bath with copper countertops and a walk-in shower made of polycarbonate.
A feather-inspired light fixture made from copper tubing, brass chain and basswood hangs on the wall above the bed in a second-floor bedroom. It spreads out during use and collapses against the wall during the day.
The solar-heated garden room stays above freezing in winter and reaches up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. It features a winter fish pond (fish and plants return to the outdoor pond in the summer), a green ash tree growing through the roof, a wooden deck floor with earth underneath, and a rock in the floor (symbiotic with the tree).
The home was built, symbolically, around the green ash tree. A rubber membrane around the tree at the ceiling keeps water and air out and allows room for the tree’s growth. The room opens to the outdoor pond and a stone patio by Montgomery's studio.
The home was built, symbolically, around the green ash tree. A rubber membrane around the tree at the ceiling keeps water and air out and allows room for the tree’s growth. The room opens to the outdoor pond and a stone patio by Montgomery's studio.
The green ash tree sprouts foliage in spring.
The garden room chandelier is made from copper, fiberglass glazing and leaves from Pier One, spray painted with several subtle colors.
An outdoor pond is home to several fish and plants in the summer. Montgomery's studio sits to the left, and doors to the garden room lie on the right.
A second-floor bath features a concrete chimney that radiates heat into the room and is lovely to lean against on a cold Vermont winter morning.
From the backyard and common green area, the home is visible (center), with an insulating berm of soil to the right of the overhang. Montgomery's studio is on the left, and the studio Sarah used is on the right.
Montgomery's 300-square-foot studio is a stand-alone one-room building with a small bath. Natural light floods this private sanctuary through recycled windows and glass doors. Radiant hot water heats the monolithic slab floors.
CAD renderings of projects and a model of a planned phototropic project line the walls. Totally self-powered, the project’s five “petals” track the daily movement of the sun to generate electricity, and the "stamen" is a 1,200-watt vertical wind turbine.
CAD renderings of projects and a model of a planned phototropic project line the walls. Totally self-powered, the project’s five “petals” track the daily movement of the sun to generate electricity, and the "stamen" is a 1,200-watt vertical wind turbine.
Stone roads, walkways and driveways wind throughout the Ten Stones community. Montgomery's home features a metal roof with an insulating roof garden, and there's a widow’s walk from which there are partial views of Lake Champlain. The exterior walls are marine-use MDO plywood.
Wood: Rice Lumber; windows and doors: Pella
Wood: Rice Lumber; windows and doors: Pella
This 200-square-foot, five-sided structure with a tulip tree–shape roof was Sarah's studio and is Montgomery's favorite home project. “It made my wife very happy, allowed me to create a roof unlike anything I had previously done and sits lightly upon the land with no permanent foundation, so it can be moved in the future.” All 144 letters of the first stanza of the E.E. Cummings poem “i thank You God for most this amazing” adorn the exterior:
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”
Sarah's studio is made of MDO plywood and heated with an electric heater. It has polycarbonate windows, bamboo floors, fabric draping on the ceiling and a desk with a cork top.
A native of Richmond, Indiana, and a registered architect in Vermont since 1976, Montgomery handles projects ranging from energy-efficient homes to ecofriendly commercial spaces. He also designs “living machines,” or water treatment projects that provide ecologically based solutions to water problems throughout the world, and his firm also designs and builds custom furnishings from nontoxic materials.
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Here are Ted's answers to your questions. I hope you find this helpful. Thanks Ted!
1. Copper fixtures - I have used clear lacquer on some. Works for a while...
2. Concrete - clear sealant as made by Scofield products.. http://www.scofield.com/concretestain_main.html
3. Deciduous trees - yes, there are over a dozen large trees outside the garden room expressly for the purpose of summer shading! In March, April, October, November and December, when the leaves are gone, I WELCOME the heat! It's a PASSIVE solar room after all...
Aloha, Ted