When Lou’s childhood friend Richard Meier agreed to become the Grotta’s house architect.
He did so with the understanding that he would have vito power over The choice of its site. After many months of site searching, they found their answer, in the small semi-rural Harding township town of new Vernon New Jersey.
Their site is a flag lot whose long straight driveway passes through a populated sheep pasture on its rise up to the mainland of their seven and half acre property.
Weeks of bulldozing and back hoeing went in to sculpting most of the crest of their site into six ascending’s grass terraces that blend the lay of their land with the 32-inch architectural grid that defines Meier’s design.
It took five years 2 in conception and three in construction before the Grottas were rewarded with their certificate of occupancy for their realized dream house with its free-flowing continuous spaces animated by omni present natural light.
Meier’s large expanses of glass rising over 21 feet in the living room core create Magritte like scenes looking in from outside and show off mother nature’s greatest show on earth looking out.
Thanks to their architect’s precise site sighting their landscapers strategic planting and pruning and major acquisitions by and donations to the Harding Town ship land trust. The Grotta’s look out as far as they can see up on open fields some that grow corn and pumpkins and forested spaces populated with powerful picturesque big old trees.
When traditionally measured in square floor footage the Grotta house it’s not a mega house. The true measure of its presence comes out at a distance in its total command over all of its land.
Over the years the house has appeared in numerous publications and languages and two Grotta house books.
Going forward you are encouraged to keep in touch with Sandy and Lou's evolving website, designed by their grandson Carter’s JUICE Creative Group, populated mainly by their son Tom’s picture-perfect photography.
