HERE are homeowners in the tropics who pride themselves on their outdoor living spaces, and we’d be the last to disparage them for having the nerve to walk barefoot from kitchen to the lanai when the temperature dips as low as 68 degrees. There could be bugs on those outdoor floors.
The house of Elaine Gorham and David Strip, on 150 acres in the mountains of New Mexico, offers a very different experience of indoor-outdoor living. The master bedroom and bathroom are in a building about 30 feet from the main house, where the living room, dining room and work areas are, so if they wish to rise and get something to eat on a December morning, they have no choice but to go outside. And winter, here in the mountains three hours north of Albuquerque, is winter: on cold nights, the temperature can dip to 30 degrees below zero. For four months of the year, there is four feet of snow on the ground.
So on a winter morning, when you get up and want to get a cup of coffee, what do you do?
“David doesn’t drink any caffeine, and I don’t drink any hot beverages,” Ms. Gorham, a retired physicist, told a visitor recently, in the literal way scientists will. Although, as she was wearing a brightly striped sweater and socks she knit herself, she was obviously an artsy and creative scientist.
So what if you get up in the morning and you want to get something to eat?
“You can actually go over the snow barefoot and naked,” Ms. Gorham said. “It’s a very brief moment.”
“It’s not like the neighbors are going to be scandalized,” said Mr. Strip, her partner, a retired computer scientist dressed nondescriptly, in a work shirt and jeans, though his artsiness would become apparent soon enough. “She just did it this morning. She wanted to remind me to make omelets, and she just ran over to the kitchen before she got dressed.”