Spectacular and Smart

With massive wooden beams and a sprawling lodgelike appearance, the Compass Cove home of Nancy Campbell and husband Frederick Wilt has been known to turn heads.

            “During the construction phase [only 17 days to get the 8,500-square-foot home under roof], boats milled around in the cove to watch,” said Wilt. “Seeing several balconies, some people thought it might be a condo and asked, ‘How many units is it?’”

            Now, thanks to the Smith Mountain Lake Charity Home Tour, the spectacular single-family home will be open for ticket holders to admire Oct. 2-3.

            Huge Douglas fir structural components, custom cut in Michigan, arrived with an experienced crew to join the pieces in a cathedral framework that supports the roof with no interior load-bearing walls. Factory-built insulated panels make up the roof, walls, insulation and window framing in sandwich-like slabs.

            Campbell had seen timber-frame homes in her native New England and always admired the style. When house-plan books didn’t provide a desired floor plan, the couple decided to design the home themselves. Their attention to efficient design yielded the lowest cost per square foot of any home built by manufacturer Riverbend Timber Framing Company of Michigan.

            “We had the dock built right away,” Campbell said, “so we could use it for play while we were still renting condos.”

            The couple fell in love with Smith Mountain Lake while vacationing and bought their Compass Cove lot in 2003. Excavation began in January 2005. In 2006, with lake-level bedroom, bath and kitchen completed, they moved into the downstairs, at first retaining their home in Northern Virginia, which they sold in 2008.

            While the rest of the house was being finished, Wilt became “executive contractor,” working with local builder Wendell Purdue. The homeowners pitched in extensively, staining and sealing all the moldings, ceiling boards and mitered beams that enclose ductwork on the second level.

            The home’s enormous beams all are joined with oak pegs, creating what the manufacturer refers to as “a house with no nails.” There’s hickory flooring and knot-free pine doors and woodwork. An open hickory stairway with mahogany inlays and wrought iron spindles connects the three levels. The abundance of wood grains and rich colors creates the feel of a resort in the north woods.

            It’s a “manly” house, complete with the latest in smart home technology. Wilt, a retired computer programmer, said, “We can lock and unlock doors, turn lights on and off, and select music room by room from touch pads throughout the house — or via cellphone or Internet from anywhere we happen to be.”

            On the main floor, a see-through fireplace and a large stuffed bear greet visitors in the great room. Conveniently situated on this level are the master bedroom and bath, plus large informal dining area, kitchen, screened porch and another suite with bedroom and bath.

            “We made the kitchen roomy enough to accommodate lots of company,” Campbell said, “and put it to the test last summer with 17 relatives and 12 dogs.”

            Light-colored Juperana San Raphael granite on the oversized island contrasts with Absolute Black on countertops. Cabinet doors of glazed distressed maple are complemented by others in black to create an intriguing combination. Over the range, tiles depicting a lake photo decorate the wall. A handy pot-filler faucet, two ovens, warming drawer, kid-friendly beverage cooler, Viking wood-paneled refrigerator and full freezer, and different zones for cold storage and cooking complete the well-planned kitchen.

            Hallways are jazzed up with paintings of birch trees, lake vistas, even a wakeboarder in flight by artist Nancy Cain, creator of The Blackwater Cafe’s lodge look.

            The upper level includes four theme-decorated bedrooms. The huge “grandson bedroom” features a lake mural and five built-in, kid-friendly beds, including one aloft that is accessed via a shiplike rope ladder, accurately knotted by one of the couple’s nephews, a tugboat captain. A gigantic spongy landing pad invites leap-offs from the loft — observable by adults through a video camera that transmits to the smart home display monitors.

            “I love to decorate, and I like to have every room look different,” Campbell said.

            While three upstairs bedrooms have lake-view balconies and their own bathrooms, one room is nautical with a boat headboard. Another, the wilderness room, which Campbell calls “everybody’s favorite,” has dark brown walls and a log four-poster bed surmounted by a realistic-looking plaster deer head painted by Cain. Another upstairs guest room features three large paintings created by grandchildren.

            A stairway decorated with “Visit SML” signs leads to the lake-level  game room where pool table, electronic games, fireplace, TV and movie theater await. A bathroom with an outside door opening to the lake is adjacent to the seventh bedroom. A combination woodworking shop and future train room awaits completion in Wilt’s post-Home Tour leisure hours.

            A stone patio with outdoor kitchen and fireplace provide more entertaining space leading toward the hot tub, dock, fire pit and natural beach, an attractive leftover from the area’s campground days.

            Campbell and Wilt readily agreed to have their home included on this year’s Home Tour.

            “It’s a good chance to give back to the community by helping local charities,” said Campbell. Added Wilt, “It’s a great incentive for getting our ‘to-do’ list done.”

For more information and photos on the eight homes that make up the 2009 Smith Mountain Lake Charity Home Tour along with a guide for taking the Tour by boat, turn to Page 58. Tickets are $25 and available at the SML Chamber of Commerce, local outlets and at smlcharityhometour.com.