By Laurel Kallenbach
A home can’t get any more local than the passive solar stone home that Tim and Jackie McCarthy built in a clearing among the wooded Adirondack foothills in upstate New York. The couple used almost all local materials: fieldstones cleared by a farmer making room for crops, sand from their property for concrete, and white pine from a few miles away. By following age-old stone building traditions, the McCarthys built a modern home that displays their environmentalism, love of the land, and desire not to be burdened by a large mortgage.
Their house combines local geology with modern architectural geometry—a vaulted living room ceiling, light-colored beams and cabinetry, and large south-facing windows. These airy, contemporary elements differ from the rustic stone walls, keeping the 1,850-square-foot house from feeling dark or cold.
In choosing to work in stone, the McCarthys were motivated by regional heritage and a limited budget. “Old-time farmers built with whatever materials were available—not to make an environmental or social statement like people do now, but because they had no choice,” says Tim.“Even if we’d had a large budget, we still would have built green,” Tim admits.
Recycled Stones Yield Perfect Home
In 1995, Tim was a cash-strapped architectural intern with a baby on the way and the yen to construct something of his own design. He and Jackie contemplated erecting a tire-filled earthship, but it required adobe clay finish, which isn’t indigenous to the Northeast. They decided to protect the integrity of their twenty-two acres by constructing a building that might have stood there anytime after European settlement.
Slip-form stone construction has been used for years and; architect Tim McCarthy adapted his own technique. Slip-forming lets the builder create a flat or plumb stone wall without using masonry skills, making it less expensive and more accessible to the layperson. Slip-forms are movable wooden panels that temporarily contain rocks, which are piled between the form and the insulation. Once a twenty-inch-high section of rock is in place, concrete is poured over it and then allowed to dry. Next, the forms are slid up the wall and process repeated. Tim devised lightweight frames for the forms to move on, which enabled him to create a gracefully angled exterior wall that tapers from two-and-a-half feet at the bottom to a narrower top.
Previous slip-form systems used a double set of forms that leapfrogged one on top of another up the wall. Tim used only one set of forms to contain stones until the cement dried, then he simply moved them up to continue building.
For the next two summers, the couple, their friends, and occasional hired workers gathered rocks and built walls. “Now that my back no longer aches, it’s pleasing to know we handled each stone as it was laid into our walls,” says Jackie, an elementary school teacher. “I got to know which rocks would fit perfectly in corners, and I’d set aside especially beautiful ones to cover the fireplace.”
After two summers of weekend work, the masonry was completed. Tim estimates the two-and-a-half-foot-thick, insulated, double stone walls cost less than $3,000. “By using local materials and your own labor, the cost of building walls can be very low,” he says. “The rock was free, the sand for concrete was free, so aside from buying portland cement, we had few expenses.” He managed to acquire free stress skin insulation from a local maker who had discarded mis-sized panels. “We’d bring a case of beer as a gift, gather some oddball panels, and stuff them in the walls,” he says.
It took another year to install the beams, roof, windows, and floors and to complete the inside work. The McCarthys then had enough equity in the house to take out a small loan for the final work. Until that time, their home was completely mortgage free. “If the green building revolution is going to work, it has to become accessible to the common person—not just the wealthy,” says Tim, who offers green architecture principles to his clients..
Stability of a Stone Home
No stereotypes about stone dwellings applies to the McCarthy house—it’s not damp, cold, musty, or dark, thanks to Tim’s use of glass and an open floor plan. The kitchen, living room, and dining room are one open area divided by the stone masonry stove, which is literally the heart of the home for the couple and their eight-year-old daughter, Lauren
The masonry heater burns wood at an extremely high temperature for two hours, stores heat in the rock, then radiates heat for at least ten more. It replaces the need for a furnace and works in tandem with a hot water heater to supply radiant floor heating. Opposite the fireplace is the bread oven—one of Tim’s Christmas gifts to Jackie, an avid baker and cook.
“Company always congregates in the kitchen—no matter what size it is,” laughs Jackie, who prepares meals featuring her homegrown organic fruits and vegetables. Unlike most kitchens, it has only one wall into which the refrigerator and cabinets are recessed. “While I’m cooking, I can talk with Tim if he’s in the living room or working at the built-in computer center that’s just off to the side,” says Jackie.
The family loves how all the spaces relate to each other, allowing them to feel together even when they’re in “separate” rooms. Jackie says “And the flow is perfect because the bedrooms are down the hallway in the more private part of the house.” Because they too were designed with windows overlooking the deck—another family gathering spot—the bedrooms feel quiet but not isolated.
Along with the sheltered feeling innate in a stone house, there’s a sense of permanence and stability that comes only from rock. “It took a long time to build this house, but it was worth the wait,” says Jackie. “I think the farmer who originally cleared the stones from his fields a hundred years ago would be pretty pleased to see what we built using those same materials from his land.”
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