The once familiar scent of fresh cut wood and sound of drills and hammers emanating from Lester Germanio’s Roadrunner Road home have resumed after years of recess.

He, and his self-financed, self-constructed project to create a self-sustaining residence, are back in good standing with the West Lake Hills, having recently received a building permit extension. As far as Germanio is concerned, however, the city has a way to go before being in good standing with him. Despite amenable attitudes from both the mayor and city administrator, years of conflict with the city have left him weary. But he seems ready to return his focus to the project at hand.

“This design came up in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks,” he said. “I was going to put a conventional house on the property.”

Those attacks, and the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he calls “resource wars,” made him acutely aware of the impending shortage of non-renewable resources. His house, he said, is his silent protest.

“I said, I can sit here and root for these wars, or I can say I don’t need those resources, so the war cannot be in my name,” he said.

The Mediterranean design for the predominately limestone and steel home that he and his son are building honors his Italian heritage but is essentially a product of form following function, Germanio said. The individual billets surrounding a central courtyard allow each structure to nestle into a different point on the sloping property for optimal wind flow since the home will not have central air conditioning.

The majority of the limestone used to construct the home was excavated on site and the design of the steel, double-layer roof was conceived specifically for the location that would allow a layer of air to keep the edifice cool while the upper, wider layer of roofing would act as a shade to the unit below.

“We don’t build in this country to take consideration of climate; all of the houses look exactly the same, and that doesn’t make sense,” he said.

The inner courtyard will not only aid in air flow but be a part of his sustainability mission as it houses a fragrant garden of herbs and vegetables sitting adjacent to a greenhouse for the same purpose in the winter.

“When a lot of people come up with the idea of a sustainable project, they forget about food,” he said.

Having already switched to a grain-based diet in which most of his calories come from homemade sprouted-wheat bread, he said the transition wouldn’t be difficult to make. Water retention ponds on the property will eventually be home to fish to keep protein in his diet and the rotating crops of vegetables, he said will keep meals from getting boring.

“I always eat the bread with some kind of tomato sauce with different vegetables. It’s just like eating pasta or lasagna and I could do that every day, morning, noon and night,” he said.

Those retention ponds would be part of his water reclamation system. A 40,000-gallon cistern sits low on the property off the master suite, which will soon be capped to become a sitting area with a stunning view of the Hill Country. That water will be pumped into a 14,000-gallon tank at the top of the property, which will allow water to flow into every room using gravity as its only power source.

“Nine inches of rain will fill those stores to capacity,” he said.

Germanio does admit that the project was not designed to lend itself to comfort, but to functionality. This idea, he said, his wife of nearly 40 years, Sonja, is coming to terms with.

“Her attitude pretty much seems to be, if you can do it, I can do it,” he said.

The idea of an “off-the-grid” project conjures for many images of secret, underground bunkers, but the Germanio home, is just that, a home. The office where he will continue his civil engineering business will be Internet-capable and the solar panels he plans to install will provide enough power for anything they will need aside from air conditioning.

“I like it here,” he said. “I feel good here.”