Toni Hambleton and her late husband Bob found their piece of paradise on the island of Puerto Rico, which is about 1,000 miles southeast of Florida between the Virgin Islands and Hispaniola. They had been living in Chicago, but when Bob was transfered to Puerto Rico they began looking for a home there.
The Hambletons had always wanted to live in the mountains, and eventually they bought a small mountain hut where they could go for weekends. Gradually they turned the vacation home into a permanent living space.
A trip to Peru inspired them to carve a piece of the mountain into terraces. They added walkways made from slices of old tree trunks and other recycled or discarded materials. They built a studio for Toni and a tiny sleeping hut for their grandchildren. Since the original hut was too small to use as a full-time home, they turned it into a guesthouse and built something larger--without any plans!
Since they didn't want to affect the environment any more than necessary, they built the house on top of telephone poles. Almost all the materials used to build the home are recycled. Bob designed and built a waterfall using a leftover beam and stones collected from a nearby river bank. It extends under the stairs, down the mountainside and around the property.
Since the weather is temperate, the buildings are indoor\outdoor places. The original home is now used as a guesthouse and a place for Toni to conduct ceramic workshops. It includes a sheltered bedroom and bathhouse as well as two rooms that are really outdoor spaces with a roof. One of the rooms is a kitchen that contains one of Toni's favorite finds: a washing sink from Mexico.
The main house is completely enclosed, but there are doors that open onto a balcony. A living area, bedroom and bathroom are located on the top level, and there are more bedrooms and bathrooms on the next two levels below.
The walls and ceilings throughout the home are made of unvarnished recycled wood. For instance, in the main bedroom the beams are old redwood, and in the living room they're ironwood. Much of the furniture is recycled as well. A stairway that's normally used in boats lead up to an attic loft space that Toni uses as an office.
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