The condition of John, Jr., had made it necessary for several years for the family to escape the inervating heat of the Indianapolis summers in Michigan, and one morning at the breakfast table, after his election to the senate, Mr. Kern remarked that if the summer sessions of the senate continued he did not see how he could be satisfied with the family two days and a night away from him. Looking up quickly, John, Jr., said: “Why not go to Grandfather Kern’s place in the mountains of Virginia? Perhaps it’s as cool there, and I would gain as much as in Michigan.” The thought had never occurred to the Kerns, but in ten minutes it was arranged that they should go to Virginia to test the practicability of the plan upon the ground. Many times, in other years, while strolling about over the thousand acres, they had noted a particular ridge as an ideal site for a home, but they had never so much as ascended to the top. The result of the inspection was a determination to build a “shack” and try it out one summer. Reaching the place at noon, where they were met by a man with a movable saw mill and a mountain carpenter, the contract had been let by 6 o’clock for the sawing of thirty thousand feet of lumber, the place for the house had been staked off and the carpenter had been engaged. Without blue prints or architectural plans, Mrs. Kern planned her house that afternoon, and when it was found that the lumber would cost so little it was decided to “spread the house all over the hill.” The rock for the foundation was found in their own mountain, beautiful white sand was to be had in abundance in their own creek bottom, and the sandstone for the fireplace, with shades of pink running through it, was found on their own ground--the thousand acres of woods, rocks and rough places. When Senator Kern’s term in the senate expired, a hundred acres--thanks to Mrs. Kern’s energy and initiative--had been cleared and ditched for cultivation. For a description of the house I am indebted to the pen of Mrs. Juliet V. Strauss, well known as “The Country Contributor” to the readers of _The Ladies’ Home Journal_ and _The Indianapolis News_. This brilliant woman, an intimate friend of the Kerns, after a visit to Kerncliffe, wrote her impressions under the title, “The House That Araminta (Mrs. Kern) Built.”