As you approach Roark Barron's house at the end of Old Santa Fe Trail, you are greeted by an entryway made of two 13-foot tall wind harps that Barron built — a prelude to the sculptural house that took Barron seven years to build.

The house is bermed into the hill on the north side, where six feet of earth form a curved mass that allows it to maintain the heat gathered from south and southwest-facing windows. In keeping with the design of the house, the windows aren't angular — Barron's aesthetic is all about curves, spirals and waterfalls, which he says are pleasing to him, as well as conducive to creating and recording music.

Round rooms tend to be good for making music, Barron said, because the sound doesn't reverberate as it does in a square room, where it sometimes gets caught in the corners. He says he wants the music to "sound like the house looks." Although the harp is Barron's primary instrument, the sunny curvilinear front room is filled with four harps, a piano, acoustic guitars, exotic string instruments, congas and recording equipment.

The small spiral waterfall adds another dimension, creating a serene layer of sound. But Barron said this hasn't always been the case. The years spent building the house were chaotic ones. He and his family camped out and lived in a 1947 International Metro bread truck and travel trailers for years before the house was completed. The Metro is still parked near the house, but hasn't moved in 31 years.

"This house pushed me in ways I would never have pushed myself," Barron said. "It built me in a way I never would have imagined, but there were times when it was a struggle for me to wake up and look at this giant unfinished blue whale."

Barron didn't have a lot of money when he took on the project. He just wanted a house and thought it would be "cool" to build it himself, exactly as he wanted it to be. He remembers that it required a lot of tedious tasks and learning skills — including how to do electric and plumbing — things he says he didn't imagine he would ever do.

"But the blessing of what was the curse is that I now have one of the few electric harps because of a lot of the principles I learned building the house," he said. "For years I had a gas flame on top of the harp."

Victoria Adams remembers the sound of Barron's harp when she moved to the area 25 years ago. Every evening she would fall asleep to the sound of harp music wafting through the valley. She didn't know Barron, but always enjoyed the music. Eventually she and her husband Brian wandered across the valley to meet the mysterious harpist.

Victoria and Brian Adams left their imprint on the house in the form of an attractive handcrafted willow railing on the staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms. Victoria Adams says it was a group effort led by her husband. The Adams' sell their willow furniture at the Farmers Market.

Barron bought the 1.03 acre piece of land in September 1978 and began building soon after that, although he had never built a house before. The Owner Built Home by Ken Kerns gave him many ideas and the inspiration to begin building — with the help of friends and family.

Casey Ryan was building his house at the same time Barron was building his. Ryan says they would help each other — a couple days they would work on one house and a couple of days on the other. Ryan has a background in framing carpentry and was able to put in Barron's floors.

Ryan lives down the arroyo about a quarter of a mile south of Barron. He says there were a few friends who built non-traditional houses in the area using natural materials but that Barron's is the most eccentric.

"It's a pleasure to see Roark's house when I walk up the arroyo," said Ryan. "I can see the tower and curved lines. It's beautiful in the winter when it's covered with snow,"

Barron said the house is like a large clay coil pot. Each five-inch coil has a center of continuous barbed wire reinforcement. He would ram the stiff cement mix into the form that sat atop the wall like a train track and slide it on instantly, moving and refilling it with hand-mixed cement until it was complete. Once, after finishing a 20-foot section of coil his pants caught on the tip of the exposed barb wire and the entire section came tumbling down.

Designing the house allowed Barron to see what does or doesn't work. There were times when he would tear down a wall and start again. He knows the house intimately — if something isn't working the way he knows it should work he is able to fix it.

Building the house has been a wonderful adventure, he explains, but adds that the house-building process can make or break many relationships.

"Living in an unstructured reality is difficult," he said. "There is some discomfort to not having the basic things. So if I had to do it all over, I would want to have a comfortable home or trailer to live in until the house was ready to live in."

As difficult as it was, Barron remembers that living in an unstructured reality allowed him and his family to see where things naturally fit — where you would want a table, where to put the fireplace, etc.

"There was an organic dictation. We would do one thing and that would show us what to do next," he said. "There is an interesting kind of progression. The artistic process was to allow for discovery by being open to how things might fit."

Barron said that although the house is completed he sees it as a work-in-progress. His next plan is to create a greenhouse attached to the front of the house.

To learn more about Barron, visit his Web site at www.RoarkBarron.com.

Contact Natasha Nargis at natashanargis@gmail.com