Extra touch of warmth

But a fireplace is an inefficient source of heat. A wood or gas stove is generally better, but the heat doesn't last much longer than the flames in the firebox. Now a stove and fireplace designed to work together? That's more than just a potent source of long-lasting warmth.

"Functional art" is how Stephen Bushway describes the combination, called masonry heaters. These are stoves built into elaborately designed fireplaces that have multiple chambers inside to retain the fire's heat longer and spread it throughout the stone, which radiates heat long after the flames die. Among a small set of specialized masons certified to build such fireplaces, Bushway strives for masonry heaters that are not only environmentally sensible, but works of personal expression.

In the home of his father-in-law, Arnold Westwood, in Windsor, for example, the masonry heater itself is seven feet of brick, a mix of colors from plum purple to fire-engine red, with the chimney soaring to the high ceilings of the open great room. Sprinkled among the bricks are beach stones that Westwood collected around his late wife's family home in Rhode Island. Bushway carefully cut into the bricks to add in the beach rocks.

Built into one side of the fireplace is a bench made of soapstone with a delicate scoop to it, its backrest flecked with tiny Y-shaped minerals. Known colloquially as Crow's Foot, the soapstone comes from a quarry in Ashfield.

Such details, Bushway said, "makes it, for the owners, a little bit more theirs."

In the wood stove a fire burns at a seething 1,600 degrees; at this high temperature it produces half the emissions of a wood stove. The firebox is designed to retain heat longer than a conventional stove, which transfers its heat more quickly to the stove's metal framing.

Bushway clamps a hand to the brick surface, which is oozing warmth at a gentler 160 degrees. "It's not something you need to stand back from," he said. "It's a comfortable heat."

Bushway also built into the heater a traditional fireplace. Westwood said he finds the fireplace particularly useful "in the spring and the fall, when I don't want to light up the heater."

Like Westwood's, masonry heaters can have built-in stone benches, offering the owners and their visitors a cozy and unusual perch. The wide, angled, and two-sided masonry heater that Bushway built in a farmhouse in Hillsdale, N.Y., using tan South Bay Quartzite, has an L-shaped bench that creates a niche at an inside corner.

Other unusual custom features include a wood waiter - which ferries logs from the basement to the stove - that Bushway enclosed in a heater for a home in Peru, Mass.

Masonry heat is an ancient source of warmth, evolving in style and design over centuries and continents. The heaters inspired a small, cult-like renaissance in the United States in the 1970s and '80s, when the back-to-the earth ethic and craftsmen movement rediscovered the efficacy and beauty of simple, traditional technologies.

They are not inexpensive. Custom installations from Bushway, for example, can run from $20,000 to $40,000. Smaller, "off-the-shelf" designs from kits can run $10,000 or less.

Heating output can vary considerably, depending on such factors as a home's insulation. But roughly put, a small masonry heater can warm an area of up to 1,000 square feet, while larger models can keep a 4,000-square-foot home comfortably warm. Depending on how much wood is burned and the mass of stone used, the fireplace can continue to throw off heat anywhere from 12 to 24 hours after the fire dies out.

A full-blown new masonry heater may be impractical for homeowners without the room or budget for them. Though not nearly as impressive or heat-intensive, fireplace inserts are a popular fallback for those who want more warmth from their existing fireplaces. This essentially involves inserting a smaller wood stove within the fireplace. Some models have small fans inside the stove that distribute heat into the surrounding area. Inserts can range from around $2,000 to $5,000, depending on size and features.

For those who don't want the hassle and expense of obtaining and storing wood, gas-fired stoves are an attractive option.

Wood-burning stoves and some gas stoves must be tied into a stainless-steel liner inside the chimney. There are some gas models that can be vented directly through an outside wall, and other less expensive models that do not need any ventilation at all. These are usually designed for larger rooms and require permits from both the fire department and a gas inspector.

"You can buy a fireplace like this that's vent free, that doesn't need any chimney," said Curt Ludlow, operations manager at August West Chimney Co. and Fireplace Concepts of Pembroke. "You basically just frame it in the wall and you're good to go," Ludlow said.

Lekker Home in Boston's South End sells what may be the easiest stove for any fire-challenged city slicker; you don't even need a fireplace for it. The stylish Chimo stainless steel burner hangs on a wall just like a picture frame, and sells for about $1,700. It burns ethanol from an inside reservoir and does not require any venting.

"A lot of the new buildings in the South End don't have fireplaces," said store owner Natalie Carpenter. "It's a great solution."