Right here from the beginning, let's get things cleared up. I am not the typical capable young wife you see on those TV building shows. And I do not enjoy setting commodes, doing electrical overhauls, installing insulation, or lifting huge rafters with one hand and nailing them in place with the other. I am an overweight, middle-aged, hormone deficient woman who detests any physical exercise that makes me sweat.

     Ever since we were married, both my flat lander husband, Tommy and I have dreamed of having a place in the mountains. Ever vacation or long weekend, we left our home outside of Memphis and headed across the long state of Tennessee to spend time exploring the beauties of the Great Smokey Mountains. On one such trip while staying at the Von Bryan Inn, a bed and breakfast sitting atop Hatcher Mountain overlooking beautiful Wears Valley, our host told us there was a plot of ground right next door for sale. The out-of-town owner didn't have a sign up, but he was willing to sell. After scrambling down a hill and fighting through briars, we came to where the building site would be. Surrounded by tall trees and thick brush, you could peek through and see that you might have a view after everything was cleared out- my husband, Tommy said I have no imagination. A call was made to the owner and plans were made to meet him the next week.

     Next week arrived, our twenty-fifth anniversary, the owner came, and after much discussion and dickering a price was settled on- his original price- and we were the proud owners of two and one-half acres of what we were sure would probably be a beautiful site for our dream.

     The price did not seem to be too bad to us considering what you have to pay for cramped subdivision lots in the city. We soon found out that the locals did not agree. Down at the local general store the next week, I heard two "born and raised" discussing and laughing at "those fool city people who had just paid that enormous price for that little piece of ground on top of the mountain and most of it straight down at that!" Well, you don't have to hit me over the head. After getting back in the car, it didn't take me long to figure out they were talking about us. Oh well, the deal was closed and we had paid our money down and had a nice note to boot, but we had our piece of the mountain. This was June of 1990.

     For those of you who have never built a home, savor every minute of the planning and dreaming phase when you do. Believe me, it is the best part. As had happened sixteen years before when we designed and built the home we are now in, the fun began. But I had learned something this time. Fighting with your husband over details at this point is wasted energy. Save all the energy you have for the knock-down drag-out once you start building. We settled into a peaceful existence visiting our home site every couple of weeks 400 miles away.

     We decided the next Christmas that we were not getting any younger and if we were going to build we had better do it now. the only problem - where to get the money? My career seemed to be going pretty well - I am an artist - so we decided to go deeper in debt and do it. With a lot of guts and no brains, we decided to refinance our present home. After all, interest rates were down and we were not going to build anything very big anyway, maybe just one big room, combined living, bedroom, and kitchen with an enclosed area for the bath.

     Have you ever filled out an application for a mortgage loan when you are a middle-aged,self-employed artist and your husband does not work? Let me tell you, if you don't feel like a criminal when you leave the bank, the bank officer must have failed to do his job! The next eight weeks were nothing short of a nightmare. Almost everyday we had to take something else to the bank. Never apply for a loan right after billions in defaulted loans have been brought to light, even if they were thousands of miles away from you. You are a potential defaulter and the bank feels it is their responsibility to delve into every dark corner of your sordid life.

     Will wonders never cease? After they couldn't find anything else to torture us with, they finally approved the loan. We were set. With some ingenuity and my husband Tommy doing a lot of the work himself, we felt we could almost finish our home with the money we had at the time.

     The plans were being finalized when we decided we probably needed more space in the house for resale purposes, if that became necessary. What started out as one room was soon divided into three with large openings for an open space feeling. But then, we thought we had better add another bedroom upstairs, a large eating area, another bath upstairs and an open loft looking out over the living room. Well, we probably would run out of money, but we wouldn't worry about that. It would come out all right --- someway---probably.

     Tommy had lined up someone to be there Monday morning to start moving dirt. Monday morning came, but that was the only thing that came. Little did we know that this was to be the first of many frustrating days when no one showed up. In our end of the state people were looking for work with the slow economy, but not so in this bustling community. Another thing we soon learned was the work concept of the local builders and craftsmen in the area. You work a few days - when you need money - and then you take off a few days until you need some more money.

     Being city-bred and highly motivated to work everyday, this drove us crazy. However, a funny thing happened. We soon came to realize that these totally charming, polite men enjoyed life a lot more than we did. While we were running around with hypertension and headaches, they were taking time to enjoy their families and friends, their beautiful mountains, and were, in short, literally taking time to "stop and smell the roses".

     Three weeks later, July 4,1991, the first shovel of dirt was moved. The building site was cleared and before us was a most beautiful view of the valley below and we could see from one end of the national park to the other. We were ecstatic. With a view like that, we really needed to revise our plans for a simple deck on the front of the house. Tommy got out his pencil and started designing. At this point let me say that my husband is not a dead beat that doesn't work. He is a very talented man who manages my career and is an artist in his own right. He is also not one to do anything halfway, so when he started designing that deck, he went all out. The final result was to build a 130 foot long retaining wall 15 feet high and shaped like a half-moon. The wall would be built with retainer wall concrete blocks, reinforced with steel vertically and horizontally and poured solid with concrete. The outside of the wall was to be covered with dry-stacked native stone. Steel rods would be attached to the wall on one end and five yards of concrete on the other end. The deck surface was to be concrete terraced with steps down to the wall so as not to block your view when sitting on it. You think you are confused! I didn't have the faintest idea what Tommy was talking about until the last bit of concrete was poured. How much was this going to cost? It sounded expensive but after all , the view was so beautiful we really needed to take advantage of it. Maybe we could cut back somewhere else.

     While the wall was under construction, the well drilling crew showed up. the boss said we would probably hit water at 200 to 300 feet since they usually did around there. that sounded great. The rig was set up and drilling began. One of the older men was assigned the job of sitting and waiting for the water to come in. With nothing else to do he took a very active interest in the construction of the wall. Every time Tommy walked by, the old man would spit tobacco juice and say,"that wall is going to fall. take my word for it. I've seen too many of them. it's going to fall". Every time he said it, the more determined my husband was that it was not going to fall. I figure that old man cost us a bundle after Tommy added everything humanly possible to be sure the wall wouldn't fall- and it didn't, at least it hasn't yet.

     Back to the well. You would think that there would be plenty of water in the mountains, wouldn't you? Wrong! Days passed and the well went deeper and deeper, 500-600-700 and finally at 800 feet down they said we were getting 2 1/2 gallons per minute, which was not good. The boss suggested we crack the well. He would do it for another $2000. Forget it. We would take baths once a week if we had to. That 2 1/2 gallons per minute had already cost us twice what we had planned.

     Electricity-we had to have that and we sure didn't want to be looking through a bunch of wires. The view was so beautiful, so- go underground. It sounded great until the guys started digging trenches straight through rock. Of course, underground costs a lot more, but it was worth it. In the meantime the wall was progressing beautifully. We were blessed with the finest stone layers in the state of Tennessee. their family had laid stone for several generations and they really knew their business. Along with the beautiful workmanship they also shared a lot of their family history which included tales of when the United States Government came in and bought their family's land for $1.00 an acre to build the park. Besides laying stone one of the fellows raises the finest sour wood honey I have ever tasted. I must get in touch with him to reserve some for me this summer.

     Well, we now had water, electricity, and a retaining wall and over half of our money was gone. But at this point we couldn't worry about that. Now we could finally start the construction of the house. While everything else was going on, Tommy had plenty of time to think about this. We had been forewarned that several times a year the winds got up to sixty to seventy miles per hour on that mountain, so we had better build it strong. Here again, the redesigning began and if I never knew anything before, I knew that house was going to be strong. He finally decided on a timber frame for the construction of the front part of the house. The ceiling of the living room was to be twenty-one feet high with glass all the way to the top. We must take advantage of the view. Again we were fortunate to find some local craftsmen in the Valley to fabricate our beams for us.

     After the house's foundation was laid and Tommy had secured a framing crew, work was ready to begin on the construction of the timber frame. The fellows on the crew had never had anything to do with that kind of construction, so they decided it might be better to be paid by the hour. The deck was constructed and scaffolding was set up everywhere.

     Now that crew of guys were as hard working as you would want - but they were like my husband, no spring chickens. Some of those beams for the timber frame weighed one thousand pounds and were twenty-two feet long. When you are on scaffolding twenty feet off the floor lifting those beams manually and fitting the mortise and tenons together, it is no easy task. And on top of that the temperature was hitting 100 every day-unheard of for September in the mountains. For two days those fellows worked like dogs and then, on the third day nobody showed up. No calls, no nothing. We thought they had walked off the job for sure and I would not have blamed them. The next morning they all showed up fresh and ready to hit it again. Nothing was ever said and we figured they decided they needed the rest or maybe they went fishing. After all, trout fishing is great in the area.

     The framing was soon finished and I thought that, at this rate, the house would be finished in no time. Silly me. As Tommy has always said, the framing goes up fast and shows up a lot, but then----.

     Now we needed to get the roof on the house to keep out the rain. We had wanted a metal roof, but that was going to cost over twice as much. At this point we had already spent all of our money, so we decided on a conventional roof. I thought nothing would be prettier than a white house with a green roof. When Tommy went to order the roof, they said the color he wanted was called "Ugly Green". I don't think that is the real stock name of it, but that sure is the way most people up there feel about it. D. J., one of the proprietors of the B & B, said he has to put on his sunglasses every time he looks that way it is so loud.

     The roofers came and Tommy agreed to pay twice the going rate if they would do a really good job for him. When they got through, I felt like I had just gotten off some roller coaster ride after I looked up at it. They had somehow managed to run the roof downhill at such an angle that even the housekeeper at the B & B complained. She said it was going to drive her crazy if she looked at that roof every day. About half of the roof was removed and we had to eat the extra expense of new roofing. This was not good since at this point we were already paying for everything out of our own pocket.

     We got our framing crew back to put on the siding. We had decided to use maintenance-free vinyl siding, but with the strong winds it would probably be all over the mountain side. So we decided on rough sawn cedar siding painted white. This was in the Spring of l992. Before construction was completed we had french doors to blow out twice and one window blew out - frame and all. Whoever warned us about that wind was sure right.

     When you are building a vacation home, people, especially those in the contracting trade assume you are pretty well off. That is not always the case. Sometimes it's just a case of "we're gonna do it or die!" --- dying may have been easier.

     Anyway, the bid for heating was enormous, so Tommy decided to do it himself with the help of our younger son who was between careers. He had just finished flight school and had decided instead to become a chef. They did the heating, plumbing, and electrical, which really did save us a lot of money. This was the Summer and Fall of l992.That Fall was a special time too with the arrival of our first grandchild and she is grand.

     Meanwhile, the economy was in the pits. One thing about being an artist,when the economy is down one of the first things people give up is art. But there would be ways. We had spent most of our savings, but we were in too deep to back out now. At this point we made a small loan at a local bank for additional funds.

     Our son had gotten a job, so Tommy took up the task alone. He got everything ready for the next step, sheet rock. We lucked out there. Our sheet rock man did a beautiful job and charged us a very reasonable fee. It looked like our luck was changing. He finished right before Christmas.

     I wasn't seeing much of Tommy. I had to stay home and paint and he was camping out in the house in the mountains while working long hours. Things had gotten really rough. Depression had set in. Every time I went to the mountains to be with him, it was cloudy and raining and most of the time you couldn't even see beyond the deck.

     Then Spring arrived. The red buds and dogwoods bloomed and the trees budded out. The air was crisp and fresh, and Tommy had really made a lot of progress. We picked out hardwood floors and kitchen cabinets. We made a trip to Dalton, Georgia to get our carpet and saved a good amount of money there. I was having fun buying linens and such. With money so short we were painting and fixing up lots of old furniture we had. I even resorted to opening my sewing machine, something I had not done for ten years.

     Oh well, everything would work out O.K. -- some way -- and after all, the view is so beautiful.