So it began...

A few months ago, we decided to start a blog documenting the building of our new house on Mt. Rubellite in Hebron, Maine.  At the time, we were in limbo, waiting for the builder to get us a quote or the bank to complete the appraisal or some other thing taking up valuable good weather building time.  Now that it's actually under construction, it's hard to know where to start the chronology.  Luckily, we are at a pretty boring phase of construction, so maybe the best thing to do is start at the beginning, and hope to catch up by the time exciting stuff happens.

But, the beginning is sort of a hard time to pin down.  Matt had been dreaming of designing and building a house for years before I met him, and for fun on the weekends, we would drive around central Maine looking at properties or towns where we might like to live.  I wanted to be closer to the coast, Matt wanted to be closer to fishing, we both wanted to be close to work.  We spent hours in Borders, perusing and purchasing architectural books and magazines.  We subscribed to Dwell.  One year, I gave Matt some design software for Christmas, and we had fun drawing houses in 3D.

One fall, Matt noticed that one of our favorite local architects, Carol Wilson was giving a talk at Bowdoin College. We planned a date night in Brunswick and went to her talk.  Every single thing she talked about, from the use of passive solar heat to her ideas about simple, clean lines resonated with things we had already discussed.  There was one exit on the way out of the auditorium, and she stood there, greeting everyone.  We introduced ourselves, and went on to have a lovely Indian dinner on Main St. The following Saturday, Matt decided to call her office, and leave a message about how much we enjoyed her talk.  The plan was thwarted when she answered the phone. She suggested we meet to talk about our ideas, so we drove 40 minutes to Falmouth during finals week.  We had no land and no real plans, but we talked for three and half hours.  It turned out to be the first of many trips to Falmouth.

In December of 2007, tenured and newly married, we contacted a realtor, Fred Greenwood.  Fred showed us several properties, and then, almost as a PS, he mentioned he and his wife, Rebecca ,were thinking about selling some of their land.  We fell in love at first sight.  Carol told us if we didn't buy it, she would.  So we did. 

This is what it looked like at that point:

At the base of the hill, about halfway up the eventual driveway. That's me, on showshoes.

Looking west.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking south.  I'm actually standing in the eventual dining room.

Looking south, at Fred's house.