Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991 TAG: 9103230085
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SU CLAUSON/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: INDIAN VALLEY LENGTH: Long
No, on Christmas 1989 they moved next door - out of the two-story Victorian farmhouse they had inhabited on River Haven Farm for 36 years and into an heirloom of their own creation.
"We didn't really want to be anywhere else," William Phillips said. "And we've been saving good wood, thinking about how we'd use it in a house."
So after curing for 25 years in a storage shed, almost 9,000 board feet of white oak, cherry, black walnut, cedar and sassafras Phillips had harvested from his hedgerows and hillsides was dusted off and incorporated into his dream house.
The modern exterior of the Phillips' sprawling, ranch-style house on Indian Valley Road is misleading. As soon as you step into the marble-chip foyer and sniff the fragrant scent of raw cedar, you know this isn't your usual plywood and pressed sawdust modern home.
Turn to either side and you see burnished russet floors, cherry wood laid in a random pattern usually seen in homes 200 or so years older.
"We like the colonial style and we don't like to waste wood," said Mary. "So we laid wider boards alongside narrower ones."
On the right is the music room, its cherry baseboard, molding and chair railing completing the colonial touch. They liked the cherry wood so well they commissioned John Gormley of Willis Woodworks to build a cherry hutch for the west wall.
In fact, they kept Gormley busy for several seasons, building walnut end tables, vanities of cherry, oak or cedar for four bathrooms, oak cabinets for the laundry room, an oak desk for the office, a cedar stereo cabinet, a cedar bureau and a carved cherry fan design bed for their room. Gormley finished the last piece, a sassafras entertainment unit, in November.
"This is a real special type of wood," William said, touching the dark zebra striations through blonde wood. "You don't see a lot of sassafras trees this big anymore."
When they decided on hand-built furniture, they chose quality over economy. "Yes, it helped that we provided the wood, but you pay a high price for labor," Mary Phillips said.
She likes the facts that the wood came from the farm, that it came with a sense of history and that the furniture has been custom created to fit into their own spaces.
"This is all solid wood - not just veneer," said William Phillips. "We know it's quality."
Quality is the trademark of this house. All the closets are paneled floor to ceiling with cedar and shelved with thick planks of the fragrant wood. The floors are cherry.
Even the wood brought in from elsewhere is distinctive. The exterior door is mahogany, the living room floor an unusual oak parquet.
Mary Phillips wanted to use farm wood for the kitchen cabinets until she fell in love with the sunrise-colored bleached wild cherry she saw in a Radford cabinet shop.
"I had all those years we were living in the other house to think about what I wanted," she said. "I knew it had be light and airy with lots of natural sunlight. I don't want a lot of dark colors."
Large windows in the kitchen and living room offer a view of the Little River. Those in the parlor and tile-floored breakfast room allow the Phillips full view of operations on the 500-acre farm run by their two sons, Marion and Allen.
Marion Phillips has a room downstairs, off a cedar-paneled hall so large a neighbor suggested they turn it into a bowling alley. On one wall, cedar boards are arranged in a decorative rectangular design. The outside walls are an experiment in the rough, lava-like split face cinder block.
"Marshall Concrete wanted us to try this out inside - most folks use it for exteriors," Mary Phillips said. "We like it, but it really does suck up the paint."
Other features of the home include: a fold-out ironing center, an intercom system and the kitchen island, which sets the stove apart from the sink and counters. "I'm safety-conscious. I didn't want the stove too close to anything that would burn," Mary Phillips said.
The Phillips have practical reasons for other constructions, too - the long, narrow root cellar was installed behind Marion Phillips' room because they couldn't see wasting the space. That's also the reasoning behind the small cupboards tucked behind the bathroom doors, the closet off the mud room and the walk-through guest bathroom.
Mary Phillips, who gives piano lessons to 18 students of various ages, is quick to reassure a potential student doubtful of her own ability. "Why, you can do anything you want to," she exclaims.
She is proof of this. In March 1989, the former language teacher started sketching her plans for the dream house. After a little help from her son-in-law, she presented her diagrams to contractor Sam Simpson and asked if he could make up a blueprint to match.
"He said he didn't need a blueprint, that he could work from my scale drawings just fine," she said proudly.
In April, they marked off the outline of the house in the thistle-infested orchard down the road and by the next spring they had held an open house which drew more than 180 guests.
"We built it for us, and we're really enjoying it," said Mary Phillips.
by CNB