Located on Lantz Mountain, this contemporary retreat offers sweeping views of Monterey Mountain, with winter views overlooking the Blue Grass Valley and Hightown.
Originally designed and permitted as a one-bedroom home, the property includes a loft space that now functions as a second bedroom, in addition to a separate loft office. Built without compromise and designed for an easy arrival, it's a place equally suited to a quiet weekend or a fully self-reliant life.
Three additional outbuildings round things out with the same quiet redundancy, giving the property a self-sufficiency that few mountain homes offer.
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Interior
The main living area is anchored by a Rais wood stove from Denmark, with an ash pan and discreet, dual-lever air controls. Andersen casement windows frame the mountain views throughout, with solar shades across the sliding glass wall that opens onto the deck.
Heart pine quarter-sawn floors run through the main level, warmed underfoot by radiant heat, with the entry and bathroom tiled floors independently thermostat-controlled. Overhead, angle bracket rafters, reinforced with tension rods, are left exposed as a defining architectural feature rather than concealed behind finish work.
A rolling library ladder accesses a separate loft office with poplar wood floor, a fold-down desk, a day bed, and built-in shelving, a compact, deliberate space that makes the most of its footprint. A second, larger loft sits at the top of a spiral staircase with tempered safety-glass railing and now serves as a second bedroom; a skylight with auto-retreat blinds brings in daylight above a small desk area overlooking the living space below.
Throughout the home, individually controlled lighting allows for mood and room-specific settings, and museum-quality fixtures highlight art and sculpture pieces displayed in a lighted cabinet.
Kitchen- A Summit refrigerator and propane gas cooktop with an exterior-vented exhaust hood are surrounded by abundant recessed lighting, tasteful cabinetry, and a single-piece Corian counter. Water filtration includes three stages: whole-house sediment and charcoal filtration, with reverse osmosis at the kitchen tap.
Bathroom- A quartz counter and a stone composite soaking tub bring a quiet, grounded feel to the interior bath.
Main-Floor Bedroom- A trap door leads down to a sealed crawl space beneath the home, enclosed with a 12-mil membrane, with foam insulation and an air gap beneath the flooring for additional thermal performance. An exterior door from this bedroom opens onto the deck near a partially fenced dog run and the outdoor shower.
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Exterior
A deck off the main living area highlights the views and wraps around the end of the home, including the outdoor shower, access to a small dog run, and a dedicated mechanicals closet on the rear exterior of the house. The closet houses the water filtration system, the propane-fed tankless water heater (which also supplies the radiant floor heat system), an additional reserve accumulator tank, and related mechanical components.
The southeast-facing glass doors are shaded by a powered awning with a remote control, and the lintel above is tracked for a future barn door, should a future owner want one. The two-foot cantilevered overhang, visible from the deck, is insulated, and decking is screwed rather than nailed, encouraging longevity and stable footing.
Water is spring-fed and gravity-held in a cistern system with 2+ reserve tanks, one of which is accessed near the front entry stairs. The system is also designed, though not currently connected, to collect rainwater from six-inch half-moon stainless steel gutters, professionally coated for long-term durability.
The roof is a snap-lock metal system with no exposed fasteners, installed as a cold roof over purlins with ice-and-water shield beneath the metal for an added air gap and weatherproofing layer.
Property boundaries are informally marked by fencing along the sides, though not fully intact; a fence post marks the southwest driveway corner, and rebar marks the top-right property corner.
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Additional Buildings
Garage/Workshop & Studio- The largest of the property's outbuildings houses a workshop and garage on the ground floor, with an upstairs office and studio. The workshop is heated by a propane heater mounted to the ceiling. A greenhouse attached to the rear draws warm air from the studio's wood stove through a simple fan-and-pipe system.
Storage Building- A smaller structure nearby holds dry goods and general supplies.
Firewood & Generator Building- A fourth building stores firewood and houses a backup generator serving the workshop and studio.
A leased 500-gallon propane tank, remotely monitored and auto-filled by the supplier, serves the property's propane needs throughout: the garage's ceiling-mounted heater, the home's gas cooktop, and the tankless water heater, which in turn supplies the radiant floor heat system.
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The Setting
Just down the mountain, Monterey serves as the quiet, historic center of Highland County, small enough to walk end to end, with a handful of local restaurants, a natural foods market, and a small art gallery. The town's rhythm follows the seasons: a maple festival each March celebrates the county's long tradition of syrup production, a county fair marks late summer, and a harvest festival rounds out the fall, alongside a weekly farmers' market on the courthouse lawn. The West Virginia line sits only a few miles beyond, a reminder of the historic turnpike that once linked the Shenandoah Valley to the Ohio River.
At nearly 3,000 feet in elevation, the area enjoys a genuine four-season climate, summers stay comparatively mild, winters bring occasional snow, and the sugaring weeks of late winter carry a quiet rhythm all their own.