Too bad that the hundreds of houses at the coastal development Sea Ranch, which were supposed to be modeled on local farm buildings such as this one, turned out to be so sterile. The one part of Sea Ranch design that did work, was the landscaping by landscape designer Lawrence Halprin; he basically left the natural vegetation as is.
Ward Hensill builds these unique tiny buildings in Bodega, Calif. He uses 1⅛″ plywood, and it is screwed together — no nails. The pop-out windows give them a much bigger feel than you’d expect with only 120 sq. ft. of floor space.
More info: www.bodegaportablebuildings.com
These last 4 days, we had a visit from Steve Pezman, the co-creator and recently-retired editor of Surfer’s Journal, and his long-time surfing buddy, photographer Leo Hetzel. Steve interviewed me and Leo shot photos for an article in the magazine. We talked about the old days, among other things, and this was the cover of a scrapbook I made of a surfing trip to Costa Rica in 1990. It shows Kurt Van Dyke on the balcony of his hotel for surfers in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean coast southeast of Puerto Limón. When he saw me about to take a picture, Kurt said, “Classic, eh?”
(I have a long history with the Van Dyke family. Betty Van Dyke is one of my oldest and very best friends, and I hung out with Peter Van Dyke in the ’50s; Kurt is Betty’s son.)
I shot this in San José del Cabo about 10 years ago.
Looks like it’s behind Seal Rocks.
They don’t have the noble head of a hawk or a falcon, but they are masters of flight — cruising the updrafts, looking for rotting meat.