Her Taylor home has all the modern conveniences - computer, telephone, hot and cold running water, stove, refrigerator, radio and even a microwave and television although she said she never uses the last two. All this is done "off the grid" using solar power.
More than 30 people dropped in to visit her recently as part of the annual Arizona Solar Home Tour sponsored by the Arizona Solar Energy Association and organized locally by Val-U Solar LLC in Snowflake.
"The tour includes five homes showing five different uses of solar power but they always end up in my house because it has the most different uses of solar energy," Kerr said. "I have house warmers, a water heater, cooking and drying all using photo voltaic cells. I have the Internet, all the lights I want.
"It seems strange at first (to live that way) but, once you start up, it gets to be fun, especially since there's a lot of exchange of information."
Her house, now part of the Kerr-Cole Sustainable Living Center on Paper Mill Road in Taylor, is fairly easy to heat since it does back into the hill. The part not inside the hill or in framed glass is built with cinder block filled with rebar and soil and insulated on the outside, making it easy to heat in the winter using a wood-fired stove. The house's location and insulation with walls eight inches thick make it comfortably cool in the summer except on the hottest days, at which time she opens up the two doors on either side of the house for a good cross current. She doesn't need a thermostat. She regulates the temperature by opening and closing drapes, windows and/or doors.
"I have the best house," she said. "I enjoy everything I'm doing and I have a beautiful view."
In the past 30 years or more, Kerr has taught hundreds of people to use solar power for running households. A number of people have come to learn at the center, the latest being Sanu Shresthra, a man from Tibet, who came for a six-week internship to learn the "whole spectrum" of using solar power. He was mainly interested in cookers and dryers for cooking fuel conservation.
Because of her interest in solar energy, especially for cooking, Kerr was recently awarded the American Solar Energy Society's Women in Solar Energy Award.
According to the awards booklet, the award "was designed to recognize a woman who has contributed significantly to the acceptance and advancement of women in solar by any of the following means: advocacy, education, technical efforts, contracting or implementing social change."
Kerr was recognized as one of the primary founders of the solar cooking movement.
"I started solar cooking in the early 1970s during the first Earth Days," she said. "I knew little about it but I saw a rudimentary water heater and large cooker. The cooker was as big as a desk but when I saw it I began to see how to make it lighter and easier to use.
"What we have now is the size of an apple box. The cookers were made of metal or wood. The breakthrough I made was when I decided to try a design using cardboard before I made a wooden one. I found the cardboard worked very well. It was durable as long as it was kept out of the rain and it's easily available."
In the 1970s, the award booklet notes, she designed an early cardboard cooker, then an early solar wall oven and then a solar panel cooker known as the "Cookit." A manufacturer in Minneapolis is making them for worldwide distribution. One of their newest versions is an injection stove made from recycled pop bottles.
"It only weighs 11 pounds so it's very portable," she said. "It's called the Sport and is designed primarily for refugees and overseas NGO (Non-government organizations). They are designed to nest into each other so 900 can fit into one shipping container.
"They are brought in and then a whole area can cook. It's not just solar cooking but a water pasteurization system, which may be as health-giving as cooking food. The pasteurization can be done without using wood since it's becoming increasingly scarce."
Kerr's three designs are currently used and promoted by Solar Cookers International, of which she was a founding board member, the award booklet stated.
Although Kerr isn't able to go everywhere herself to promote the cookers and other solar power uses, she is able to promote the concept through e-mails, letters, phone calls and personal visits.
"I'm stuck at home but it's exciting to know I still have a part in all of this," she said.