January 2009 | BY Sara Baker | April 2009, Issue 66 |

- In the living room of the HandMade House, ceramic birds by Pamela Brewer sit atop a coffee table by Ronno Cooke. The “Biedermeier Secretaire” by Jamie House with Denton Bragg stands to the left of the fireplace, a project collaboration by Jan Derr, Diana Gillispie and Jeremy French. Susan Webb Lee’s “Diamonds and Rust” quilt hangs above the fireplace, with a ladder by Lang Hornthal to its right. Photography by Stewart Young
Take 100 artists plus one custom-built home and what do you get? A handcrafted masterpiece.
Turning a new home into a reflection of yourself is always a labor of love. You bring in things that you’ve loved for years: a comfortable chair, a colorful quilt, your wedding china. Then you get to work on the challenge of finding the perfect art to fill the rooms—pieces that complement the person you are and the space in which you live. It’s a process that usually never ends.
Imagine what the results would be if you turned the entire process on its head, bringing artists and designers together to incorporate art into every aspect of the home, before ground for the building had even been broken.
That’s exactly what the “HandMade House at the Ramble,” a design experiment in the mountains of Asheville, N.C., has done. HandMade in America, a nonprofit organization representing craftspeople, and Biltmore Farms, the developer of The Ramble Biltmore Forest community, invited 100 regional artists to incorporate their work into the design of a custom-built home.

“We are discovering that new creative relationships are being forged between the artists, makers and design professionals as they work together,” says Geraldine Plato, executive director of HandMade in America. The project considered art in every phase of construction, including handmade cabinets and countertops and a f loating master bath vanity. Each room is filled with handcrafted furniture, wall hangings, rugs, pottery and various works in other mediums by artists including ceramist Akira Satake, mixed-media artist Don Stevenson and metal artist William S. Rogers.
The home was open to the public in the fall and winter months, and is now on the market, all art included. In addition to its unique handcrafted charm, it also meets the green building standards of North Carolina’s HealthyBuilt Homes Program, with features like geo-thermal heating and cooling and a rainwater harvesting system.
The partners are also publishing a handbook to help other developers create similar handmade houses. For more information, visit www.handmadeinamerica.org.