Log cabin with hip roof, central Nevada. Squared-off logs, nice joinery. I shot this in the early ’90s, on one of my 4×4 trips in search of remote hot springs in the American southwest. It was out in the middle of nowhere, making it even more special.
Note tacked-on addition in back. Even with that, the simplicity and beauty of this little building shine through. Note also floor joist tenons routed in to bottom girder/log.
This little beauty down a side street in Torrey, Utah, stopped me in my tracks. It’s in our book Home Work. The log work is perfect — a master builder at work. (Check out notched-in log partition in center, and notched-in cross-ties — look at second horizontal log below eave.) Perfect proportions. No architect in sight. Shot in 1989.
(Subtitle: 46 Years of Building & Gardening)
You know, it’s Thanksgiving morning, both boys are off for the holiday with spouses’ families, and Lesley and I are working on our separate crafts. What a difference with no phones, no email, no business necessities, no one else around. Witness the fact that I’ve hardly blogged at all lately. Gonna have to get one day a week here with no distractions. A right-brain day!
The unbound pages came in from the printers a few days ago. What a thrill! The book’s getting bound (in Hong Kong) this week, shipped and will be available in early March, 2020. When we get it together, we’re going to take pre-orders.
I’m still getting used to the book. After covering hundreds of builders over the years, this is the first on my own (and Lesley’s) work.
Stay tuned.
These photos shot with iPhone. We just got these early pages.
Music de éste día: The Gilded Palace of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers, 1969
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUeFJ7QIRbE
Lloyd: greetings from Victoria BC. Some five years ago I shot this pic … up north of here. I was up there to play at the island art festival. It’s likely that you have been there on your long and winding road. We took a little drive and when I saw this fabulous wall I shouted … STOP. I jumped out and grabbed the shot. I didn’t ask the owners permission as there seemed to be no one at home. I rediscovered the shot and have been admiring it again. Much love and gratitude to you.
Stuart
I wrote Stuart and asked if this was a painted-on optical illusion and he replied:
“No it’s not a painting. I walked up to it, sized it up, started laughing, and it’s just a very well made optical illusion in wood. Gobsmacked … I was a little.”
Bob Easton, who designed (and did all the hand-lettered headlines and drawings of small buildings) in Shelter with me in 1973, has been an architect ever since, and today sent me this note, along with this photo:
“…got busy this week, in the middle of renovating 120-year-old Episcopal church here in Montecito.”
The church was apparently designed by Arthur Benton in 1900.
I was a FLW fan in the early ’60s. We went to Taliesin West (on the same trip, hung out a bit with Paolo Soleri at his compound in Scottsdale, where he had just built this beautiful underground grotto/studio). Slept on the deck of a burned-down FLW house nearby. Visited the house (in Pasadena?) with imprinted concrete blocks and also got a tour of a home in Marin County by a guy named Berger who built it himself.
So FLW’s engineering sucked. He was an artist!
This was sent in by Ed today. For the thread that started the FLW conversation, see comments on this post: My Little Hut in the Woods
Just ran across this shot from a 2005 trip to Viet Nam. Sometimes a building is perfect without even knowing it.
We are in the final stages with our latest book, The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening. It’s 8½″ square, 168 pages, with about 540 photos of these things:
House/Kitchen/Cooking/Preserving/Foraging/Fishing/Gardening/Chickens/Crafts
It’s a book I’ve been meaning to put together for years, and it feels good to be in the final stages.
Above are two choices for the cover. Click either image for larger view. Whichever image we choose for the front cover, the other one will go on the back cover.
What do you think?
There are several additional accounts documenting this beautiful indigenous/
vernacular style. These folks seem to be particularly organized and have published a book, that I hope can be sold here somehow or maybe even reprinted in an English language edition. Phenomenal tradition. –Gazine Grenia
instagram.com/nalichniki
