The daughter of a minister, this 60-year-old retired attorney with impeccable grammar and manners seems as orthodox as they come. She grew up in Chapel Hill and even ends conversations saying, "Cheerio!"

If you have the privilege of being invited to her home, you might wonder if you have the correct address.

Located in the woods of Orange County, but with a Durham mailing address, the Christie/Hartley "Green House" is a highly modernist, eco-friendly home built in the Piney Mountain subdivision off Mt. Sinai Road.

Not only did Christie, who had dreamed of building her own home, conceptualize the look, she made sure it was as green and healthy in design as finances and location would allow. She took "outgassing," the release of toxins from certain building materials, into particular consideration when designing the home.

Since its completion in 2005, she has written and self-published a book about the home, "Green House: the Story of a Healthy, Energy-Efficient Home." She and her architect, John Hartley, will be giving a slide-show presentations of the home at Saturday at Flyleaf Books, 752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Christie and her husband bought the lot in 1992, but lived in a townhouse they'd purchased in 1977 near Duke University another 10-plus years before inspiration took over in 2003 and she made her first sketch of the house on an index card - a sketch that proved fairly accurate in the end.

In her family, most quality time revolves around cooking, sharing meals and drinking wine. Therefore, in her home there is no telling where the kitchen, complete with multiples of every appliance, stops and starts.

"Don't most of us live mostly in our kitchens?" she asked.

The main living area is a 900 square-foot great room, doubly long as it is wide, with two great dining tables, two major cooking stations, cathedral ceilings and a smaller home-theater section where a number of chairs - not sofas - are clustered before a large flat-screen television mounted on a wall.

"My sense is that most conventional American houses are ill-suited to the lives of the typical American family," she said."These conventional homes have spaces which are never used: dining rooms, living rooms, foyers and excess bedrooms. Other spaces are wastefully . . . or inadequately sized."

The basic floor plan of the Green House was strongly influenced by the design of an Italian "shotgun" apartment - long, narrow and rectangular, with areas sectioned off into smaller spaces. Christie claims the home could be decorated just as easily with traditional furnishings, but she chose a modernist style for most of the décor as well, utilizing plants and artwork to warm the place up.

Her master-suit area is designed to accommodate the aged and is wheel chair accessible. This consideration came naturally, she said, as she has been caring for disabled loved ones her entire adult life.

She and husband, George Christie, 75, a Duke law professor, have three children who frequently visit. The house is "very much made for spending time together as a family," said daughter Rebecca, who comes home from D.C. for "bad bridge" games and lots of home-cooked meals.

This time of year, the sunlight pours through the wall-length windows into the main living area, exposing views of a recently landscaped backyard that incorporates the natural forestry.

"What I love is having breakfast there in morning because you can see out into the woods," said George Christie, who gave his wife carte blanch decision-making authority in building their home. "It's particularly nice in the winter because the sun is low in the horizon and it comes in under the overhang."

The overhang keeps the house cool for in hot weather, as does the forest. The home is passive solar, with an active solar water heater, among other eco-friendly features, and was built using structurally insulated panels, or SIPs.

This was the first SIP-home for architect John Hartley, of Hartley Construction. He has been building green homes in the area for decades, and Christie credits him with helping turn her index card into a 2,700 square-foot dream come true.

"I learned an enormous amount," Hartley said. "She researched every aspect of that building."

There are sleeping quarters for guests opposite the master suite, but they hardly feel like bedrooms. The only real conventional space in the home is the loft located above the attached garage. It was included in the plans as a caretaker's apartment, and her youngest son, Nick Christie, lived there for a few years upon its initial completion in 2005.

"The house is night-and-day different from the house we all grew up in," he said."The only thing for me that took some time getting used to are the solid concrete floors, which apparently are essential to the passive solar concept.To not have any wood or carpet, and to have floors which are really cold in the winter, is a bit of a change for most people, myself included. My parents are quite happy wearing indoor slippers."