Their dream in post-and-beam

It all started with a trip to the 1996 Philadelphia Home Show. Neil A. Morris stopped by the Lindal Cedar Homes booth, saw a photo of a post-and-beam ski chalet, and the wheels started spinning.

The company's catalog, which resembled a coffee-table book, was a wealth of inspiration, but Morris had his own ideas for creating his Ivyland, Bucks County, dream house - most of which involved the principles of modern geometry.

Morris found Chris Hughes, now the architectural and design manager for home builder David Cutler Group, and told him about features he liked - lots of curves and angles, windows, and open rooms. Plans were sent to Lindal, and company engineers made them to scale. The company shipped post and beams, Canadian red cedar, and windows and doors to the building site. Morris provided roofing.

The end result? A home Morris' fiancee, Rhonda Goldberg, calls their vacation property.

"I never want to go away," Goldberg says. "I feel like I am at a resort all the time."

The exterior features soaring angled sides and a curvy turret near the front door. Inside, guests are greeted by a large center foyer with custom butterfly staircase. A 32-foot-tall windowed great room overlooks a pool, a deck, and woods.

The idyllic 7-acre parcel was purchased in 1995 from Jack Wolford, now Morris' neighbor, who owns a circa-1700 stone house. Wolford had set a condition that whoever bought land near his house had to put a Colonial there. But Morris, who had always favored contemporary-style homes, asked Wolford about buying a secluded lot so he could build the house he wanted.

The 7,500-square-foot house, with five bedrooms and 41/2 baths, was the largest Lindal had done, says Morris, a labor lawyer with Archer and Greiner in Philadelphia. Even Wolford likes it.

The project maxed out Morris financially and proved daunting for some of the contractors. "The first drywall people came in and took one look at the place and walked out. All of the angles scared them," he says. "There was so much planning that went into this house."

Because it was so tall, Lindal worried that the house would sway. Lou Kaelin, of Kaelin Construction in Mount Holly, who served as the general contractor, had never built a house quite like it.

Until the house was framed, they had no idea how tall the great room would end up being. To shore it up, three-quarter-inch plywood was installed behind the drywall, bigger posts and beams were used, and cables were run from the top of the house to the crawl space to make it earthquake-resistant. John Suchy, the local Lindal rep, was at the site all the time, troubleshooting and monitoring progress.

"Some contemporary houses are cold," says Morris. "This one has exposed beams and cherry doors. That gives it warmth."

Master carpenters from Schaefer Woodworking made interior cabinetry and worked on the 2,500-square-foot deck that leads to the pool.

"If we were practical, it wouldn't look like this," says Morris. When the stone and tile experts came to visit to discuss bathrooms, for example, he wanted to save by using tile. "They said, 'You can't do tile in a house like this. You have to do granite.' So you end up not cutting corners."

Morris did manage to save on the exterior staining. "The contractors left the Genie lifts here on weekends, and I would get up on them and stain the cedar. It cured my fear of heights," he jokes. It also made him feel more a part of the process.

Another cash investment went into making the house energy-efficient. It has geothermal heating, and after looking into Peco's Smart Energy programs, he did as much as he could.

Because there are so many windows, including skylights in each bedroom, not much artificial lighting is used during the day.

At night, Goldberg says, she likes the display at the back of the house.

"In the summer, the lightning bugs put on the most spectacular light show outside our windows," she says.

"The deck outside my bedroom is where I love to drink my coffee in the morning when the weather is nice and listen to all the different sounds of nature," says the preschool teacher.

Adds Morris: "In the winter, almost every morning and evening we will see anywhere from two to 15 deer. . . . They are used to us and sometimes take awhile to move as we come down the driveway.

"In the winter, the deer 'trim' all of the bushes around our home. It is a small price to pay to be privileged to observe such beautiful, graceful creatures."

The house bounces with activity in the warmer months, as visiting family and friends swim and cook out.

"Some people have Shore houses," says Morris.

Not them, he says. "We don't need a second home."

Tell us about your haven by e-mail (and send some digital photographs) at properties@phillynews

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