...Schmidt was born in 1897 in Astoria, Queens, New York, where he was trained as a plasterer and stonemason. Around 1940 he moved to Woodstock, where he applied his trade and also worked as a general handyman. Married at the time and living on Ohayo Mountain Road in his first house, Journey’s End, he began to clear and terrace a nearby mountain slope.

He did not have a specific plan when he began to build: it was an organic process, and his vision grew as the house evolved. The growth of the house paralleled his development as an artist, and the house began to exist as a point of departure for his creative energy.