Founded in 1895, The American Academy in Rome is the foremost American overseas center for independent study and advanced research in the fine arts and humanities.

Academy Fellows and Residents include archeologists, architects, historic preservationists and conservationists, humanists, artists, classical scholars, designers composers and writers.This experience provided the Dirsmiths with an extrordinary opportunity to see how the arts could collaberate and integrate their skills and talents.

Ron Dirsmith, Fellow in Architecture, American Academy in Rome, is one of the privileged few who has been awarded this coveted prize. He and his wife and partner Suzanne and their two young children lived in Rome and traveled over 40,000 miles throughout Europe, camping and traveling in a VW van. From the Northern Fjords of Norway down to the Greek archipelago, they studied and absorbed the antiquities, classical sites and the history of art and architecture that has connected throughout the civilizations.

From the ancients, Suzanne, Ron and their children did, indeed learn...not new ways, but ways too often forgotten. The ancients felt a great kinship with their surroundings as they built. As scholars and frequent camper tenants among the ruins, Suzanne and Ron also learned how to most advantageously blend structure with the most lovely of what is beyond, earning a reverent respect for the endless potential of Nature's simplicity