From Chris McClellan:
“…the treehouse SunRay built in Portland in a 300 year old fir tree in the middle of a suburb. When one of the neighbors complained and brought out the building inspector he apparently fell in love with it because he told them to take the stairs down and put up a ladder so it wouldn’t be a deck because he had no authority over treehouses that weren’t decks with stairs.”
Chris’ website: https://www.industrialrustic.com/nb/
David is a master builder living on an island in British Columbia. His work was featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast, and here is his description of an apple press he just built:
“Lloyd…
Right now I’m building another apple press since there’s a good crop on more trees around the island this year. The last one I built back in ’76, damn near the first machine I ever made, and it made it through all those years and another zillion gallons of juice. This new one is same old three-legger, but slightly larger and with more foodsafe materials, so it should be at least a 50 year workhorse around somebody’s homestead:
Today I drilled, rolled and riveted four 304 stainless bands for the barrel hoops, which will have rock maple staves thanks to a woodworker buddy from Ontario.
“Hi,
I have just completed a structure that has greatly been inspired by the books you produce. I am a 26 year old carpenter/ designer from the UK and work using traditional techniques and local sustainable materials.
I just thought I would share my creation with you, the Peach House was commissioned by a member of the Royal family and I was given free reign with the design and build, which was a very rare but amazing experience.
This sent us by Eva. It’s pretty long, and I haven’t watched it all, but I sure would if I lived where there was stone. Looks like a very thorough explanation of the principles of stone walls with and without mortar. A great explanation of why stone wall joints should not be lined up under one another.
I loved this part: “Every stone in the world has an ambition…” — pause, twinkle in his eye –“that ambition is to sink to the center of the earth as soon as possible…”
“…It’s a move from mass-consumption. When you live in a small space, it forces you to think what you need and don’t need.
Noel Higgins will raise a glass to his tiny, wooden house-on-wheels on Mar 17 to mark the first year of a radical lifestyle change.
Lloyd,
Thanks so much for your stunning support for small abodes. I’m looking for an instructor to teach a hands-on workshop intensive on how to build a tiny timber-framed house on a trailer.
Location: my organic farm in the Berkshires
Timeframe: Summer, 2013
Any suggestions?
Cheers!
Eli Rogosa
Mystic Sheaf Bakery
Colrain, Massachusetts (near Shelburne Falls)
growseed.org
413 624 0214
On November 29, I posted a link to a large New York Times article on SunRay Kelley. In retrospect, it’s not really good or fair reportage on SunRay; it doesn’t do him justice. Part of it is East Coast reporter snark about West Coast free-spiritedness. Part of it is that the reporter just didn’t get SunRay— that he’s not only an artist, designer, architect, and inventor, but a master builder. His mortise and tenon joints, even with gnarly lumber, are tight. He’s a carpenter whose buildings soar. There’s a joy and a spirit in both builder and buildings. The NYTimes reporter missed all this and focussed on a bunch of trivialities.
And there was a very weird interview with SunRay’s ex-wife, who came up with some mean-spirited comments. This shouldn’t have been included in the article. Cheap shot, ex-wife-wise and journalistic-wise.
SunRay’s way better than you’d get from this account. In my opinion, there’s no other natural materials builder in the world who’s combined such ecology, design, and craftsmanship in so many buildings on the American landscape.
Just settin it straight…
For anyone interested in SunRay and his work, we have posted a PDF of the 27 pages we did on him and his work in Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2004. (We do—ahem—a way better job on builders than does the New York Times.)
For the real SunRay, click here. (To get this in Acrobat, you may have to right-click and save linked file in downloads folder.)
