Though they wanted their house to look like a lodge, the owners also wanted it to be slightly more contemporary feeling. "They wanted a natural look and aspect to their house, but wanted very clean lines and color," said Joe Colao, of Milestone By Design in Arlington, VA, the stone supplier and installer. "They were especially not interested in random stone sizes and joint patterns that would give too much of a rustic feeling to their house. Due to the magnitude of space they wanted to ensure a 'light' feeling, while still using stone to accentuate the landscape, the color of the overall house and the incorporation of nature in the architecture."
After looking at several stones with Kohler and Colao, the owners decided that Crystal Lake ashlar strip -- a 4-inch-thick building stone with a granite/mica composition -- fit all their needs, and about 500 tons of the material was purchased for the veneer. "We began running into problems with this stone about halfway through the project," said Colao. "We were buying up all of the Rolling Rock Building Stone, Inc. quarry [of Pikeville, PA] supply, and they could not produce enough for us. New orders for the stone were halted to try to meet our demand, though we ended up having to slow the project down while we were waiting for the stone.