A DIY Retreat With a Deadline

By JULIET CHUNG

New Paltz, N.Y.

Looking for relief from their hectic New York City lifestyles, Richard Nemeth and his girlfriend Amber bought a six-acre lot in New Paltz, NY. One year later, they enjoyed their wedding reception in the barn-style house they built themselves.

On a sunny May day in 2007, Richard Nemeth and Amber Kraft signed the deed for a six-acre property, got engaged at the forested site—then decided to hold part of their wedding, 12 months away, in their as-yet-unbuilt home. Their budget: under $300,000.

"They're not ones to back away from a challenge," said friend Ben Carlson. For the next year, the couple devoted their weekends and vacation days sawing and nailing from dawn to dusk, enlisting friends and family and working frantically at the end to make their wedding date.

The finished product is a 2,100-square-foot, barn-style home that echoes the architecture of the area. The house is L-shaped; a horizontal space houses a great room with a 20-foot-high cathedral ceiling and a two-story structure, set at a 90-degree angle, holds four small bedrooms and two baths.

Photos: New Paltz Retreat

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Dustin Aksland for The Wall Street Journal

The home feels larger than its size, partly due to cathedral ceilings that encompass even the closets and bathrooms, and expanses of glass in the great room and hallways. "We live in the city where there's no space," said Mr. Nemeth, a 44-year-old principal at the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, noting that the family primarily lives in a 600-square-foot apartment in New York's Upper East Side, "so this is all about light and all about the space."

Souvenirs of the couple's athletic lifestyle fill the home. Dramatic, oversized prints of a sheer, red rock face in California and views from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro—snapshots Mr. Nemeth took during treks—hang in the bedrooms. In the hallways and stairwell, photos of Ms. or Mr. Nemeth hanging at various angles from boulders or mountain faces around the world are a common sight. "It was fast living back then," said Ms. Nemeth, 34, as she kept an eye on the couple's 18-month-old.

Last Saturday, Ms. Nemeth, a graduate student in clinical psychology, prepped salmon and baby bok choy as her husband described how they used a woodworking lesson on YouTube to fashion a 12-foot-long dining table from a tree they had cleared on the property. He also pointed out work by family and friends, like a wavy, white-resin chandelier made by a cousin that hangs above the dining table.

Mr. Nemeth, whose workday portfolio includes skyscrapers and master plans for sprawling cities in Asia, sketched the home's design. The couple also cleared the property, hung the doors and windows, laid the bamboo floor and a stone patio. They clipped coupons, and Mr. Nemeth registered as a contractor in New York state to get deals on building supplies. More complex work like excavating the site and framing the house were bid out to contractors.

There was one mishap—Mr. Nemeth spent a day in the hospital after a chainsaw kicked up while he was beginning to clear the driveway, cutting his face and causing him to momentarily black out. (No stitches were required.) But shouldering much of the work themselves kept costs down and helped the couple, who spent $162,000 on the hilly site, stick to their budget. They estimate they built the house for roughly $100 per square foot, with the rest of the money going toward property improvements. That's roughly half the usual build cost for high-end homes in the area. A 1,380-square-foot home on 2.5 acres, 1.5 miles away, has been asking $325,000.

Completing the home in time for the wedding was a sprint to the finish. "I was getting a little freaked so I kept volunteering to come up, and so did my husband," said Mr. Nemeth's mother, Jane. Helping Amber lay down hard-to-handle bamboo flooring was "a good bonding experience," she added. They finished a week before their May 31 wedding and held the after-party there.

Since then, the home has transitioned from a party house for their friends, a group of Lycra- and fleece-clad cyclists and rock-climbers, to a quiet family getaway where their daughter rides her tricycle and family come for weekend visits.

But the Nemeths haven't slowed down. They plan to expand an organic garden and build more furniture in their basement woodworking shop. Also on the drawing board: a freestanding barn near the home with an indoor pool and bedrooms for pint-sized guests.

Write to Juliet Chung at juliet.chung@wsj.com