Spotlight On AVERY PERSONAL HOUSE

from Keeneland Magazine Spring 2023 Edition

Making a Difference

When Brad Connell and Amanda Matthews bought their 12 acres of Bluegrass farmland in late 2009, they knew they wanted to build a home there.

Connell had almost fnished a degree in architecture before he changed paths, and Matthews had grown up helping in her parents’ residential building company, getting her hands dirty working on foundations, erecting structures, installing lighting, and doing whatever else needed to be done. As sculptors who also install their massive works, they are both certifed to operate construction equipment.

They had lots of skills and ideas but, being artists, not that much money. For nine years they lived in an apartment in a horse barn on their property, and with plenty of storage space in other barns, began collecting materials.They haunted the Habitat ReStore in Lexington, fnding bargains on new windows and doors, and discovering a whole pallet of unfnished maple plywood and giant foor tiles left over from a construction job in a retail shop in a mall. A friend also called to say a tile and marble shop had thrown out a lot of material, and “we literally went dumpster diving” to retrieve boxes of slate and travertine, Matthews said. Her father told them about a neighbor who had picked up 24 new I-beams in Orlando and would sell them for $50 each.

In the end, it was the I-beams that decided the form of the house, which they believe recalls the tall barns in Scotland and Ireland, where both their families come from. “We sort of designed the house around the materials we’d been acquiring,” Connell said.

In September 2016 the concrete was poured for the foundation and basement walls, and then Connell and Matthews got to work.They erected the I-beams themselves and designed and installed the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. Con- tractors did the framing and roofng, but they did all the carpentry — exterior siding and interior fnishes — and, of course, all the custom railings and the staircase.

The house they fnally moved into has a net-zero carbon impact thanks to the aggressive insulation they installed, the solar panels on an adjacent barn, the bank of south-facing windows that collect winter sun, the sun-protected windows on the west side, and the stair that acts as a fue for heat from a pellet stove in the basement.

While they were collecting materials and working on the house, Matthews and Connell also worked on the natural setting, eliminating pesticides to get organic certifcation for their land, rebuilding the pond, and planting over 300 trees and, last spring, 450,000 wildfower seeds in three meadows.

When they spent their frst night in the house in 2020, Matthews said, they sat up in bed, looked out the bank of windows, “and saw a million frefies. I think I was already in love with this space but that sealed the deal.” lightning bolt went through my body when I saw it.”

She had just failed in the competition for a commission she’d thought she had a good shot at landing and was a little down. Matthews was intrigued but thought her chances were slim and worried about expending the efort and expense to prepare a submission. When she asked her family what they thought, her younger daughter, Audrey, then in her teens, said, “You need a good rebound project.” So she gave it a go.

Bly, of course, spoke to Matthews. “She was a woman who transcended her time and place.” In addition to her journalistic achievements, Bly (her pen name; she was born Elizabeth Jane Cochrane) made a record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, matching Jules Verne’s fctional accomplishment, and held several patents. But it was her work advocating for women’s rights and pulling back the curtain on conditions in the insane asylum that inspired Matthews.

What she conceived was the fve massive female heads, each modeled on a real woman — Bly and four women Matthews knows personally, including both her daughters — to tell a story of female struggle and survival, brokenness, and healing.

Lynne Strong-Shinozaki, a longtime resident of Roosevelt Island and at the time chair of the area’s community board, was on the jury that reviewed the presentations. Te number was “whittled down” from dozens to seven and then to three. For the fnal review, the artists brought in storyboards illustrating their concepts. “I want to be very clear that the competition was stif,” Strong-Shinozaki said. Te other two fnalists presented what she called “traditional” concepts.

“Ten Amanda brought in her pieces,” Strong-Shinozaki said, “and I remember thinking ‘what the hell is that?’ ” But then Matthews started talking and “just mesmerized the room.” As she talked, “it was clear she had done an unbelievable amount of background work,” discovering not just who Nellie Bly was “but the essence of who she was as a human being.”

Strong-Shinozaki was prepared to fght for Matthews to get the commission but the efort wasn’t necessary. “Te minute the door closed I screamed ‘that’s it,’ and everybody went ‘yea, yea, yea.’ ” She says the installation did not get the launch it deserved, thanks to New York politics, the time of year (between Tanksgiving and Christmas), and the lingering pandemic, but it has still drawn thousands of people to Roosevelt Island. Tey come to show their daughters these huge images of Asian, Black, gay, young, and old women; to learn about the remarkable Nellie Bly; and to see themselves represented in sculpture, at last.

Matthews is not done telling the story. KM

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