WORKIN' ON A CHAIN GANG...

We were delighted when earlier this spring the contractor who did the remodel of Soundcliff more than a decade ago finally had some time to work on a much smaller series of projects we had long been dreaming.

Falling in love with the views from our part of the Island he bought a house just up the road & became a neighbor... Peter has also become our friend. We trust & appreciate his attention to the details inside his sense of basic, simple & sturdy design... all done with singular quality. Much of the  Soundcliff's character has his fingerprints...

As his reputation grew the projects he took on grew ever more complex as well.  Multi-million dollar rehabs, however, are rather more rare these days, so we were able to attract his attention once again to our several comparably small projects.

The initial work involved remaking the rather steep rock path leading down the south side of the house to the studio with steps to harmonize with those built from the parking during the remodel. As one can see in these two views before we began the change, our entire property is quite a slope down into the view over the edge of our cliff.

That rustic lower path was a great solution in the beginnings of making a garden from what had been a severely raw site reworked after the new foundation was poured & the septic system/drain field installed. Megan, who designed the bones of the garden, gifted us some necessary early traction... gardening here includes a good deal of hiking!

When I moved to Soundcliff we made the garden level into my working space & soon I became involved with the Island's Open Studio tours. I had, for a number of years, wanted to make that path more comfortable & inviting for those guests. Here is the current result:

 

This terrace  broadens into a functional destination giving access to the hose bib & the half wine barrel we use to coil the hose. We got more of the square Indonesian paving stones I first found 5 years ago for another walkway on the north of the house to make this detail. The posts act as guides for the hose while moving around to water the gardens. I've been dreaming all this for several years...

Since we'd decided to do the work of re-laying the old stones into the new frames ourselves... not quite realizing what that meant, there was a summer's worth of rock moving... hence my notion that I've been working on a chain gang!

Indeed, it became a huge jigsaw puzzle!

I particularly like this image from the beginning, when the stones were first lifted, leaving the sod which had grown between them... like a negative "print".

Peter had worked very carefully to plan so the steps would be graceful to both eyes & feet, then sprayed a working drawing directly onto the ground from from his various horizontal measurements & vertical leveling stakes, since ultimately such work must be accomplished

I believe he accomplished that grace...

But... the project continued to include more... just as the path continues... down & around, leading to my studio door, which itself acquired another terrace paved with those Indonesian stones & presenting a cedar plank bench... a working surface for garden projects or to become a buffet or bar for entertaining...

This was built atop a new drainage system to relieve what had become a problematic puddle during winter’s wet.

[Peter is on the left, directing that work...]

This view shows the terrace from the deck above when it had just been filled with a pristine layer of  sand into which the stones were laid:

Then with the bench & stone installed:

Inside the studio a new step levels the entrance, replacing a ramp which had served when we stored the lawn mower in the space now occupied by the metal polishing area:

Another terrace laid out some years ago finally got paved with the same dressed volcanic Indonesian paving stones. I’d first used them to make the steps & path traversing the north side of the house, on the way up from the house deck to The Forge, Stephen's writing cottage, or down to my studio, which in turn, we call, The Hold. I again called the Islander who had back then advertised them in the local newspaper & we bought 120 more. They are gently geometrical , yet have wonderfully subtle variety of color & surface... they are easy & fun to lay in comparison to finding a fit of the irregular shapes. I love both their looks in combination for contrast!

A new step was made from the end of the plank used for the bench of the studio terrace... bringing additional harmony to our wide mix of materials...

A mystery emerged deepened when several more stones revealed a curious marking carved into the surface. I had evolved a notion that perhaps it indicated a sign for some "hotel", even as the spacing seemed odd for that, but each of the three additional examples we found were quite similar, with the same three glyphs. Another opinion suggests them to be some sort of mason's mark, like a signature or brand. I settled one into each terrace...

While I tried to resist tackling the final bit of path, even as it is the route which I personally use in daily frequency on my way from house to studio & back. But, I was in a groove, so that resolve lost to one last project, building several steps from recycled lumber & relaid the stones which largely had become buried. 

 

I also reconfigured a crudely rough pile of stones at the corner of the building into a new garden for miniatures...

 That  brings my recent attentions fully 'round the perambulation of the house we use to negotiate our slope... I am content.

One last overview from the deck brings us back to the bottom of the steps... all rock laid during my stint on this chain gang. I'm back in the studio now, reorganizing the aftermath of all these projects!

 

You're invited to come take a walk!

 

A VISIT TO PRINCIPIA...

The term Alma Mater doesn’t usually mean much to me. While my time at DU was certainly a seminal experience for me, I never have felt the sense of “bounteous mother'” which the Latin suggests... but seems now much more descriptive of Stephen’s relationship with Principia College, where he began his education after leaving home & high school.

While he was accepted at Harvard, which would have been his father’s preference, he followed his matriarchal history instead, choosing to attend the same small Christian Science school from which his mother & aunt had graduated. That decision represents a still omnipresent dialog describing his familial core & defining the strongest influences I know in him... his intelligence comes from the very deep matrix of Helen, even as the form of such rock has been hewn by equally useful Ottonian tools.

The campus atop those limestone bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River at Elsah, Illinois, was designed by the eclectic California architect Bernard Maybeck in the 1930's.

The 60-mile drive north of Saint Louis, into more of that history, has long been anticipated as an essential sharing for us. I’ve heard his stories about this campus from our beginnings & I was pleased when we were able to make this road trip inside our travels last month, which included the American Bell Association’s Convention in the Gateway city.

We’d discussed renting a car for the day, but were delighted when Mohan & Deepa, parents of the bride whose wedding around which we designed our travels to India in 2004... offered to facilitate & share the adventure, driving their car. They were visiting Anjana, Derek, Stephen’s second cousin, & their two-year-old daughter Kavya... now living in Saint Louis & with whom we’d spent several days of family time before the convention began.

I celebrate having kept in rather close contact with Deepa because we share linkage via our blogs. To be able to enjoy more time with these friends was additional bonus since we feel strongly that sense of the joining of tribes into a larger diaspora which that wedding in Bangalore created for us. I could not help reminiscing on the cultural similarities & vast differences between those worlds while being driven by an Indian man competent on US freeways!

Crossing the river over a lovely contemporary bridge into Alton we are aware of the high flood waters which drew closer than usual to the highway built against the bases of limestone bluffs along the Illinois side.

There is a bird or dragon named the Piasa, painted on one of the cliff faces above some caves as we got near. While apparently there were native paintings reported at one time further down river, this is obviously a modern version, more mythical in a European heraldic manner. The historic pictographs probably were related to the Cahokian Mounds culture, which is another excursion we wanted to make while in the area, but is now saved to our list for another time.

The little village of Elsah is a quaint, well cared-for antique. Many homes have been restored, even as some maintain a more weathered visage...

One of the first clues to the architecture we’d come to view was this bench in a walkway built in a style much later than the original Maybeck plan, which intended to mimic the look & feel of an English village using timber & native stone facing on poured concrete structures.

For Stephen this was looking into the past...

 

The effects are often sweetly arresting... still more campus than village, particularly since the buildings are scattered within a very generous space.

I especially appreciated the detail of sorting roof tiles in a graduated color scheme:

The contrast with later construction is jarring, even as I can see limitations inherent to the original concept... particularly as viewed through the commonality of a mid-twentieth century lens. Deepa is seen here in front of such shift. She posted early-on her own version of our excursion on her own blog here... which begins with her visit to the Bell Convention.

To repair to dorms such as these would indeed offer a fine & useful balance...

I found many details I liked: elaborate beams in the common room of one dormitory, copper downspouts, painted shutters, linen-fold paneling & that constantly unexpected mix of raw concrete with stone & wood... becoming quite "rustic"...

Even the chapel's traditional look was formed of the ubiquitous poured concrete, as I saw in the ceiling:

Without doubt my favorite building was this small cottage... the architect’s study building, which he called "the mistake house"... where he experimented with the various techniques used to imbue the “English Village” style atop the quite untraditional poured concrete construction.  Stephen has a particular fondness for it as well, explaining he reserved it for a several week retreat space one year. I like this shot of him, which accentuates its miniature scale...

Stephen says there were tiles on both sides of the roof, but I found it interesting to see the underlying form of roof...

 

Here is Stephen [that is Mohan behind him] in front of his own dorm, so I can easily understand how he wanted to spend such time in the cottage. I love having now a much better appreciation for the setting of his stories from those college years...

SCI-FI HARBOUR...

I was in Seattle yesterday for regular visit to my dentist, whose office is in the Pike Place Market... enjoying visiting favorite haunts on a rare afternoon in my old city neighborhood, including the very urban Steinbrenner Monument Park, which presents views over layers of concrete infrastructure & roadways out over Elliot Bay.  Today I watched a rather stately dance of curious vessels, if such having more superstructure than actual hull can thus be called...

The dome shaped one we had seen moored deeper inside the harbor for some weeks, so I was pleased to be present with my camera on the very day it seemed to be leaving port for what must be presumed a more strategic place for its electronic visage...

From up the Sound came a floating erection to match & contrast its form... which now could only be viewed as bulbously feminine.

These two were obviously designed to do something else in the water than to carry cargo. The dome would seem to be something to do with radar or communication...

The other looks like a drilling rig of some kind...

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As it became obvious they were going to be meeting in the middle of Elliot Bay for some curious tryst a number of watchers gathered with me to make photographs.

While I only imagined their stylized conjunction, even a ferry & another barge seemed scheduled to celebrate this watery nuptial...