Snyder’s Garage, Nederland, Colorado I’m excited to be reconnecting with my old pals Mike High and George Elvin over a new project we’re teaming up on in Nederland, Colorado. It’s been 25 years since the three of us worked together as Providence Builders in Alexandria, Virginia, a short-lived design/build company I helped found soon after […]
Tag Archives: vernacular architecture
A September Ritual
Each fall I sweep the dry duff off of our funky barn roof before the Dampness ensues One of my September rituals has been clearing the corrugated roof of our funky back barn. The rambling, open-air structure is an explosion of three dissimilar building concepts, fused together with the oddball valleys and warped pitches of […]
Wowhaus Safari
I love this tiny ‘Carpenter’s Gothic’ cottage along the railroad tracks in St. Helena Whenever Ene and I are feeling cagey and uninspired, we like to seek out the unexplored edges of where we live, sometimes just to see what’s changed after our last visit, having now lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for […]
Dream Shop
I recently completed a new deck at the entry to my dedicated, 20′ x 30′ wood shop After over five years developing our rural home and studio on the Sonoma Coast, the constant challenge has been to both maintain and improve our facilities to meet the increasing scope and scale of our projects, while optimizing […]
Hancock Shaker Village
I especially love the simple tools the Shakers made, like this dust pan. We took a jog off course on our recent East Coast college tour to visit the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass. This was my first visit, though I made frequent excursions to the Shaker Museum in Old Chatham, NY when I […]
In Praise of Ruins
The Occidental Yacht Club in 2009, before it began to seriously buckle Maybe the Occidental Yacht Club was not such a great idea to begin with. At six hundred feet above sea level, the town of Occidental is a dozen winding miles down to the cliffs and breaks of Sonoma’s unforgiving shores. While I have […]
Design for Quiddity
I reserved the best of the clear and quarter-sawn stock for cabinets and doors Today when my interior design project in Marin passed final inspections and the stress of pushing for completion began to recede, I was reminded of my initial inspiration- to make a place that has a distinct smell, identifiable with local flora. […]