In the 33 years since she lost the use of her legs, Deborah Mellen has learned how important design is to disabled people. Ever since she has been in a wheelchair, she has felt marginalized by design — kept out of most stores and restaurants in Woodstock and out of her friends’ homes that have stairs.
Mellen, who worked in her family’s fine gems and jewelry business in New York City, moved to the Woodstock area in 2017. Her dream had been to renovate a barn. She loved large windows.
What she found was a ramshackle, asbestos-laden house in the hills above Woodstock with a magnificent Ashokan Reservoir view. She tore it down and built her dream home.
Mellen wasn’t looking for a house like some of the accessible facilities she’s seen, with obvious bars and ramps and an elevator built for one. “They throw ugly at you all the time,” she said. Mellen is an art collector. Ugly would not do. She found a talented local architect, Barry Price, and they got to work.
Anticipating changes
They agreed to use universal design https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/accessible/beyond-accessibility-universal-designto create an environment friendly to “people of differing abilities.” In other words, all of us. Price says universal design anticipates life-cycle changes. His aging clients are asking for homes on one level as they lose some of their mobility. “Every house has to accommodate change.” As kids move out and their parents get older, features like stairs and hard-to-enter bathtubs may become impediments.
Mellen needed a house where her wheelchair-confined friends would be as comfortable as those without disabilities. All thresholds are flat. To get to the second floor, Price suggested a large open elevator which could easily fit two people in conversation. She has a chair to lower herself into her bathtub.
Other details to accommodate her disability are more subtle: a space under the sink for her to slide into a shower with a limestone seat. She has a raised yoga platform upon which she can slide from her chair. Mellen’s kitchen is easy to navigate since all drawers and cupboards are within easy reach for her … or anyone else. The accommodations are subtle.
Another invisible feature of Mellen’s house is that it uses about 90 percent less energy than traditional homes. Her “passive house” is a super-insulated, airtight structure that requires little heating and cooling. It recovers heat and moisture and saves homeowners most of their energy costs. Acutely aware that buildings and their construction account for more than a third of global energy use, Price is committed to minimizing environmental impact. It is a moral imperative, he says, “… increasingly urgent, the longer I do what I do.”
An outdoors carport makes the transition to the front door easier and more attractive than going through a garage. There’s a tree-lined path where Mellen can exercise her frisky Portuguese water dog, Benno, and a gently sloping oil-and-chip path to Mellen’s swimming pool.
There doesn’t seem to be anything Mellen can’t do in and around her home. Now 68, she’s come a long way after the massive injuries she suffered in 1989 in Italy, when a truck driver fell asleep and rammed into the car her husband was driving. The driver was not badly hurt, but Mellen was. Many of her bones were broken, and she was comatose for three weeks. Years of surgeries and rehab followed, but her spine was broken and she never regained the use of her legs. (Two years later, her husband died of unrelated causes.)
Mellen was sent to the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. She always loved the ocean but was convinced that she would no longer be able to enjoy it. There she discovered Shake-a-Leg Miami, a sports center for the disabled that takes people in wheelchairs out onto the water. “Water is healing, water is freeing,” says Mellen.
The beauty of giving
She would find her life’s purpose in sharing her love of the ocean with disabled men, women and children. About ten years ago, Mellen heard about the only sailboat in the world manufactured to universal design standards. Called The Impossible Dream, it’s a 60-foot catamaran that can accommodate twelve people in wheelchairs, with twelve companions and a small crew that includes the disabled. It was designed so that people in wheelchairs can easily board and move around. Two elevators take them below to the toilets and sleeping quarters. Mellen bought the vessel.
Mellen founded The Impossible Dream, a non-profit for the “thousands of people who are marginalized by their non-accessible environment.” For five months each year, the catamaran cruises from Miami to Maine and back again, stopping along the way to offer disabled people in hospitals, rehabs or community groups the opportunity to sail on the only sailboat designed with them in mind. Mellen says she’s learned “the beauty of giving.”
The Impossible Dream will dock at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston from September 9 until the 18th.
Mellen and Price believe everyone who is lucky enough to live into their senior years would benefit from inclusive universal design and passive home construction. Designing for all opens possibilities for everyone, those who are currently disabled and those who may someday be.
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