Our hexagonal tower with its new shake roof. Shakes hand-split by Bruno Atkey on Vancouver Island, applied by Billy Cummings (I was recovering from a wrist operation). There’s a 6-sided copper cap, a piece of 3/4″ copper pipe, which is flared out at the end and holds a quartz crystal from Nepal (that I got at the Green Festival in San Francisco). If you’re standing in the right spot at the right time of day, it sparkles in the sunshine. (Got the idea from my friend Louie Frazier.)
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
Our hexagonal tower with its new shake roof. Shakes hand-split by Bruno Atkey on Vancouver Island, applied by Billy Cummings (I was recovering from a wrist operation). There’s a 6-sided copper cap, a piece of 3/4″ copper pipe, which is flared out at the end and holds a quartz crystal from Nepal (that I got at the Green Festival in San Francisco). If you’re standing in the right spot at the right time of day, it sparkles in the sunshine. (Got the idea from my friend Louie Frazier.)
Lloyd, here's an idea for a book: The story of how you came to build your house, and how you built it, and how it (and you) have evolved since living in it. I'd buy it.
-james
I love the crystal idea and for some reason it reminds me of indiana jones.
If you look up one morning and see a bag of sand there instead of the crystal, blame either Billy or Bruno!
To Anonymous, regarding the comment at top:
I'm doing a presentation on Saturday Sept 25th at the SolFest solar energy festival in Ukiah titled: "The 1/2-Acre Homestead in the 21st Century," Maybe some day a book. 50 years' experience.