Casa Natura: Building a Family-friendly Home

Enlarge Image Image Gallery The 1,500-square-foot econest is snuggled in a forest of ponderosa pine overlooking a field of willows. Four-foot overhangs protect the straw-clay walls, a south-facing solar room helps heat the house, and a pent roof at the gable end protects the exposed wall from driving winds and rain. Photos By Laurie Dickson

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When it comes to her environment, Daryl Stanton walks a fine line. Completely dedicated to a natural, organic lifestyle, Daryl is as close to a purist as any normal person wants to get. She wears natural fabrics and eats simply, growing her own vegetables and herbs. An interior designer by trade, Daryl has an established reputation in her hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for designing beautiful interiors using natural products, many of which come from her boutique, Casa Natura.

A true pioneer in the healthy home movement, Daryl traces her commitment back to the late 1970s when the first house she remodeled and decorated literally made her sick. “I didn’t know anything about natural materials back then,” she says. “I was a holistic health practitioner so I thought I knew how to be healthy. What I didn’t know was that a house full of outgassing synthetic chemicals—formaldehyde in pressed wood and wall-to-wall carpeting, polyurethane on the floors and in fresh paint, upholstery stuffed with polyester—can make people sick.”

The significant amount of earth—20 to 30 tons—provides a life force of its own.

Daryl fled Los Angeles and the toxic house in a travel trailer retrofitted with natural materials and began an intense period of re-education and healing. She soon began to think clearly again, and her symptoms vanished. From that day forward, whenever Daryl decorated or purchased anything for her house, she did it consciously, using products biologically conducive to life.

“I consider myself lucky,” she says. “We all should avoid these strong synthetics, but because I am sensitive I can detect them. I regard my sensitivity as a gift.”

Along the way her concept of beauty changed too. Where once she viewed natural interiors as sterile, featureless environments, she now sees them as biologically beautiful. Her new house attests to her evolution. Infused with Daryl’s uncompromising spirit, this—the third “natural” house she has designed for herself—is built to be ecological as well.

“I wanted a healthy house, built for longevity out of ecologically sensitive materials, one that breathes and feels and smells like living in nature,” she explains. And that’s exactly what she got. Designed with Paula Baker-Laporte and built by Robert Laporte of Santa Fe’s Econest Building Company, along with Steve Vessey, Daryl’s 1,500-square-foot house is as warm as a hobbit’s, even in winter when wild canyon winds blow.

Keeping it simple

Design of the house took cues from the timberframe construction and Daryl’s wish for an organic, European-style country cottage. “A simple layout was important to me,” she says. “I realized from past experience that I basically live in my kitchen. So I wanted one big room incorporating the kitchen, dining, and living area, heated by the sun and a woodstove. Then a bedroom and bath for my daughter and a separate bedroom and bath for myself.”

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