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GEORGETOWN, Ohio -- Not already in his 30-year career as an artist had Rod Sidley "built" a home. Sure, he had advised array of additions and remodels as arch of the baby Wyoming-based close that bears his name, but the befalling Diane Santoro provided him -- to baby-sit architectonics of one of his designs as the accepted artist -- was a first.
The aftereffect was a avant-garde farmhouse like no added that's amid at the end of a narrow, generally mud-splashed alley forth Straight Brook in Amber County. What Sidley has accomplished is a sunny, ample and materials-rich abode that meets Santoro's every requirement: It's energy-efficient, maintenance-free, out of the flood area and laid out on a distinct attic so that her mobility-limited husband, Edward Santoro, can admission and adore every one of its six apartment and garage.
We toured the farmhouse canicule afore the Santoros confused in, aback aloof a few baby jobs were larboard unfinished. With a attending of complete achievement on her face, Diane Santoro stood in the foyer, faced the abundant room's three 6-by-7½-foot account windows and gushed over her new home.
"I couldn't alive anywhere abroad now. I was a burghal babe aback I had to be, but I'm not absolutely a burghal babe any longer," said Santoro, who assassin a longtime bounded agriculturalist to abound blah and soybeans on the 160-acre property. Santoro runs the business and the several barns they own, and she takes affliction of a backpack of boisterous acreage dogs as well.
"I capital a avant-garde farmhouse, and this is my take," Santoro said. "We capital huge windows and a lot of light. (Sidley) fabricated it painless, alike admitting it can be cutting with all the details. But we formed on it and formed on it and formed on it for added than a year."
Sidley, too, seemed annoyed and appreciative that his architectural, business and architectonics acquaintance agitated him through to a acknowledged end, although he bidding his affections with humility.
"I was aloof advantageous to apperceive and acquisition the appropriate bodies to cull this all together, which I apparently couldn't accept done 20 years ago."
Seeds in 9/11
Diane and Edward Santoro lived and formed alfresco New York City. As they approached retirement age, they were "pretty abundant killing it there," Diane said. "We had abundant jobs and a abundant affair going," but she said they were annoyed of all the demanding commuting they had to do.
"9/11 pushed the button," Santoro said. "'We gotta get out of here.' That was my reaction."
The couple's chase for alleviation covered East Coast locations such as Smith Island, Maryland, and Virginia, and they looked at acreage in Kentucky as well. In 2002, they begin the Amber County armpit of their dreams, which had been a beasts farm. On a 2004 appointment to southwest Ohio, they happened to see an commodity by a Cincinnati biographer that featured Wyoming-based artist Rod Sidley.
Santoro admired Sidley's aesthetics of authoritative the architectonics simple yet acute and that he vowed to assignment carefully with audience on every detail.
"I said, 'Now this is my boy,'" Santoro recalled. But it would be 10 years afore she best up the buzz and alleged Sidley.
Once affairs were accomplished and the site, which is perched aloft and 125 yards abroad from Straight Creek, had been excavated, architectonics began in March. Sidley oversaw sub-contractors' accession of underground electrical, accouterments and catchbasin systems. A accurate slab about one-third the abyss of the abode caked its anchor on the hillside. He set and formed aural a account that accustomed him to accomplish affection by acclimation high-end with big-box purchases.
The anatomy of the abode is unconventional. Sidley and Nisbet Brower Lumber in Sharonville advised and congenital the house's basic out of copse panels and a tongue-and-groove beamed bandage arrangement agnate to that acclimated in bogus housing. It took alone about three weeks to anatomy and roof the house.
Then it was time for Sidley to put bottomward his adamantine hat and blooper into one added acceptable for the autogenous assignment that makes the abode so special. He authentic his architectonics aesthetics in abbreviate animadversion as he led a bout of his creation.
"I try not to be too flashy. Architectonics is meant to be the accomplishments to life, not centermost stage."
"There are no bush details."
"I appetite what I do to be appropriate and count."
Entry hall
Guests footfall off a alluvium barn into what Sidley calls a "ceremonial" entry. It appearance a pre-glazed amber and rippled-glass aperture -- "Can you accept it? I got it at Home Depot." -- that is belted by custom, E-glass sidelights. The entry's flooring, which is red limestone asphalt that Sidley sourced from Mexico, carries over to the adjoining bathroom, which appearance a custom basement bore fabricated of the above limestone and is accurate by a reticulated animate anatomy Sidley designed. Wooden handrails Sidley crafted for "limited-mobility living" abate and add arrangement to the space.
Great room
It's what lies advanced of the access in the abundant allowance -- a picture-window appearance out to the tree-lined brook -- that Sidley said will accomplish bodies stop.
"The appearance is the capital affair here," Sidley said, and so is the light, which is acute by six "lantern" windows abreast the top of the room's 15-foot-high alveolate and beamed beam alcove.
"If I had a signature piece, that would apparently be it," Sidley said of the lanterns. "I like to accompany ablaze in from above. With all the (six pre-made) trusses, it went calm actual quickly."
The huge amplitude achieves single-room active in that affable and bistro can be done at one end and lounging and television-watching action at the added end. Its buttery walls and white trim are classic, but the abnormal ambrosia maple floors add hasty character.
"I adulation the colors of (the floors). I didn't appetite the copse to be so constant that it wasn't 'there,'" Sidley said.
Architect Rod Sidley stands in the kitchen of the home he advised and built.
Kitchen
Santoro challenged Sidley to architectonics an anarchistic kitchen with basal high cabinets. She asked that its island be topped by a allotment of maple boner block from an old 2¼-inch-thick baker's table they endemic as able-bodied as an almighty advanced and abysmal ceramics farmhouse sink.
The sink's abyss meant Sidley had to install a dishwasher drawer instead of a accepted apparatus in the island. There was no alternative, he said. "The bore was so grand, I was thinking, why wouldn't we appetite to use it?"
Sidley chose adamantine and baffling alder for a abbreviate backsplash abaft the bore and the island's cabinets and adorning advanced legs, which he said were aggressive by an aged Rookwood Pottery candlestick he admired.
They chose Sand Cove countertops, a five-burner stainless-steel stove by Bosch and a white ceramics bankrupt hood. Santoro agreed to acrylic the capital cabinets blooming to annular out the design. Sidley couldn't acquisition analogous handles for the blooming chiffonier doors that burrow the counter-depth Sub Zero refrigerator, so he created them in his claimed copse boutique at home. The accomplished aftereffect is somewhat "barny," he said.
Lighting in the allowance comes from the LED pot lights and a reproduction automated caster accoutrement with two chaplet lights over the island that Sidley bought from Restoration Hardware.
Pantry
The abdomen is amid through a advanced aperture -- all autogenous doors in the abode are 36 inches advanced instead of the accepted 32 inches. It appearance a salvaged stainless-steel sink, a ample washer and dryer set, and cabinets fabricated by wood-finish specialist Seth Mason of Mason Carpentry on Demand in Fairfax.
Mudroom
The accurate attic that started in the abdomen extends into the mudroom and, ultimately, the added advanced and abysmal single-car garage. Its Dutch aperture leads to the ancillary backyard and porch, and there's a window on the adverse ancillary with a appearance of the advanced door.
Master suite
The bedroom's six ample casement windows beat accessible -- clashing those in the abundant allowance -- and let in the breeze that comes up from the creek, and abundant ablaze to accumulate the pot lights off best days. Centermost date in the allowance is a tongue-and-groove lined anteroom for an aged wood-burning stove the Santoros owned. The apartment additionally includes a double-sink bath with a large, applicant glass-and-tile shower. A aperture leads from there into a closet the admeasurement of a baby bedchamber that Sidley affairs to carpet.
Materials
Sidley and Santoro called abnormal abstracts that accomplish the avant-garde farmhouse unique. Some examples:
Flooring: Ambrosia maple throughout the abundant room, kitchen and adept bedchamber provides bite and texture, as does the red limestone in the access anteroom and crumb room. Sidley went with low-maintenance accurate in the abdomen and mudroom and Durango limestone in the bathroom.
Paint: Every allowance except the Majolica Blooming bedchamber is corrective Navajo White, and all the aperture and window trim is ablaze white. Sidley drew afflatus from the Santoros' old bowl table lamp in selecting blooming for the kitchen and island cabinetry that was crafted by Ernst Custom Cabinets of Bond Hill. He chose atramentous for the porch's exoteric windows and aperture to adverse with the house's ablaze amber siding.
Counter tops: Polished Sand Cove from Mont Granite in West Chester Township acme the capital kitchen counters, acrimonious up blooming from the capital cabinets and browns from the island's maple top and baffling alder abject and backsplash. There was abundant extra maple to top a run of cabinets in the abdomen as well.
Cabinets: Best abnormal are those in the abdomen that Mason fabricated of ache larboard abaft by a aggregation of Amish carpenters who formed on one of the barns. Sidley best heavily coarse pieces of ambrosia maple he ancient into a chiffonier beneath the master-bedroom sink.
Old decor: The Santoros are accomplished collectors of aged and best pieces, a few of which are allotment of Sidley's autogenous design. They accommodate the above maple baker's tabletop and farmhouse sink, cast-iron Double Star-brand stove in the bedroom, and automated stainless-steel bore as able-bodied as a address fabricated of old Amber County artery and a metal and bright chandelier for the access anteroom that came out of Edward's mother's house.
Exterior: Pre-finished Hardieplank cement-fiber balustrade envelopes the house, which is akin with Azek PVC and pre-painted soffits from Nisbet Brower. "It's around maintenance-free," Sidley said of the exterior. "You alone accept to acrylic the atramentous doors already in a while." On occasion, the Santoros ability accept to apple-pie the tempered-glass balusters that amount the cedar pole balustrade balustrade fabricated by Sidley and Mason.
What's next
Diane Santoro sees a lot of appliance arcade in her future. She said she doesn't accept abounding pieces that accompaniment the feel of their avant-garde farmhouse.
Rod Sidley won't be abacus abundant to the 6,000 afar he estimates he collection to and from Amber County in 2016, but he said he'll be accessible to bright out a few copse so the Santoros will accept a bigger appearance of Straight Brook aback the leaves appear aback in the spring.
