More Tree House

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my friend Peter had more than fifty visitors to his tree house. At one point, there were seventeen people up in the tree. Peter had not planned the weekend that way, but several people decided to cash in on open invitations. Everyone was enchanted and I guess I should not be surprised; I was watching a new show a week ago on HGTV; “Look What I Did”, which featured Peter and his tree house. I found myself getting sucked into the story and forgetting that I had been part of it.

      I don’t know what it is about tree houses that so many people connect to, but the connection is there. Peter’s book, Treehouse Chronicles, the story of building his tree house, has won seven book awards. Part of the reason for this is that Peter is a wonderful storyteller and photographer, and I flatter myself that my illustrations bring something to the book as well, but it is more than that. There is some sort of inexplicable draw to tree houses. There have been a number of newspaper articles in the last few years that have dwelt on the trend of adults who are building themselves tree houses. They speak of adults trying to return to childhood, of “midlife crisis”, of the innocence of a simpler time, but I don’t think that’s it.
      I am thinking of another tree house adventure that took place more than a decade ago.  Some friends who live down in the town asked me to build their children a tree house in a large pine behind their house. The idea was that once I got the basic platform up, their children would help with the construction of the rest of the edifice. Since they live in a populated neighborhood, I suggested that we side the building in tongue and groove pine, rather than plywood, so that if other neighborhood children wanted to help, there would be plenty of nailing to do. I pre-fabricated the structure for the platform and quite a lot of what would become the stud walls. The last thing I did before heading down to their house was to stitch up eight or nine simple nail aprons out of old canvas and collect every hammer I could find. Sure enough as soon as the platform was up and the hammering began, neighborhood children began to appear out of the woods as if by magic. Usually they would stop and stare, utter something like; “Whoa’, or “Cool”, and then came the inevitable question: “Can I help”? By the end of that first day, virtually every kid in the neighborhood was involved and I had run out of nail aprons and hammers.
      These children were not having a “mid-life crisis”, and they certainly were not looking back to childhood, they were there. Not all of them knew me before the project, but everyone of them, boy or girl, from the shy kid who never spoke, to the neighborhood tough-guy; wanted to be part of building a tree house. So what is it? Is it being off the ground? I don’t know, but I do think it has something to do with escape to a “safer” place. I remember one of the themes of that neighborhood tree house project was that the kids all seemed obsessed with how we would keep “other” kids out of the tree house. I thought this was odd at the time because I could not imagine who these “other” kids were. Perhaps there is something primordial about coming together and creating a place of safety, or perhaps it has to do with hiding in the trees. I don’t know, but I can tell you one question I never heard from any child throughout that whole project: I never heard the question; “Why”?     

To see my other tree house post click here.   

The Boat Shed

I spent a couple of pleasant hours Saturday finishing the winterizing chores on the sloop. With any wooden boat, you need to get some enjoyment out of doing seasonal chores and annual maintenance (or, if you are having trouble with the word “enjoyment”, then perhaps satisfaction at the money you are saving by doing the work yourself.). Otherwise, there is the temptation to skip the tasks that are the least fun, but that most need doing.
      With the exceptions of bottom painting and tracing electrical wires, I actually do enjoy maintaining the boat. I like painting, I even like most of the prep work, and I like working on rigging. A small ship like ours either requires very deep pockets and access to a highly skilled workforce, or the willingness to constantly learn, and practice a variety of skills.  It is the latter that I find makes for a very rewarding lifestyle. I love sailing, but I also enjoy sitting at anchor, in good holding ground, and waiting out the fog. I enjoy putting the boat to bed for winter, re-commissioning in the spring, and long winter nights reading up on places to explore, or spent down in the shop overhauling some part of the boat’s gear. I like the sheer variety of skills that I need to keep up, sewing, painting, caulking, splicing, plumbing, engine maintenance.
      Part of what makes all of this possible is that when we took on the boat we decided to build a boat shed within walking distance of my home. It is often on a winter evening that, what started out as an after dinner walk with the wolf-dog, turns into an enjoyable hour tinkering with something in the boat shed, or shop. Many small jobs get done this way, and it would be easy to use this fact to justify the expense of building a shed, but that is not why we built it. The boatshed is not about money and it is not about time; it is about lifestyle. I would rather walk than drive, I would rather do something at home than go out, and I would much rather learn a new version of a five-strand star knot than sit in front of the computer. I could say more, but I would rather go down to the boat shed.

Celtic Wheelhouse Part #2

       Building the “Round House” was mostly an exercise in manual labor. Digging down to ledge, mostly with pick and shovel, moving rock, and mixing mortar by hand accurately describes a good two thirds of the process. While the work was slow, it allowed ample time to think through each step of construction, and it was steady. I was continually reminded of the old axiom; “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”.       

         I had built the windows, carved door, and icebox ahead of time so that they could be set in place as the stonework progressed.

Instead of the thatch roof that would have been typical of a true wheelhouse, I had opted to use cedar shingles over a conical wooden roof. For the apex of the roof, instead of solid wood I had made a timber frame cone. The courses of cedar shingles stopped at the conical framework and I continued the shingling with wedge shaped pieces of plexi-glass. From the out side the plexi-glass is not obvious.

Upon entering the building, however, there is an unexpected amount of natural light from directly overhead. The effect is reminiscent of the kiva we visited where the main light source was the hole in the roof though which a ladder projected, and which served as the doorway.              

            Although the architectural elements of the “Round House” are more recognizable as Northern European in origin rather than Pre-Historic American; the overall feeling of the building is quite similar to that of the kiva. The scale of the two structures is nearly identical, and since the Round House sits dug into a hillside, it has similar subterranean quality.       

            While there is a seeming harmony of style to the Round House, it is, in fact, an exercise in architectural plagiarism. The door design and shingle style roof were inspired by early Scandinavian architecture. The actual carvings are more Hiberno-Saxon, the hearth was inspired by a Myceneaen-Greek hearth I had seen, although the tile design was pure Celtic. I don’t suppose it is really any more eclectic than any other house in North America, just the sources of inspiration may be a little different.

Celtic Wheelhouse Part #1

I just returned from a trip to the desert South West. While visiting family and friends I took some time to return to the ruins at Bandelier National Monument, and Tsankawi. It was on a particularly beautiful day, hot for November, and it reminded me of another visit to the same sites many years ago.
       I remember being with two close friends in a restored kiva, on that long ago visit to Bandelier. After climbing down the ladder into this round subterranean structure, we sat listening to the stillness. I remember how impressed we were by the scale and the harmony in the proportions of the structure. There was also something primordial about being in a round stone building. We wondered aloud if one could achieve the same feeling in some sort of building that could withstand the variable climate of New England, where we live. That was when I remembered seeing reconstructions of Celtic wheelhouses.
       Round, built of stone, with conical thatch roofs, these structures dominated the domestic life of pre-Roman Europeans. What would it be like to build such a structure, literally one wall and a roof? Would sitting around some sort of central hearth in such a structure evoke the same sense of tranquility and contemplation we had found in the kiva? The chance to find answers to these questions came sooner than I thought.
       Not long after that trip to the kiva, those same friends offered me an opportunity to build a weekend retreat and meeting place on a piece of land in the White Mountains. I did not have very much money to put towards the project, however, the refuse of a long abandoned granite quarry lay nearby the building site. The current owner of the abandoned quarry had graciously invited me to carry off all the rubble I wanted. So I had access to all the stone I could want, free; I just had to move it. I also found a local mill that could provide me with an inexpensive source of lumber for some sort of roof. With these newly discovered, and affordable, resources at hand, I spent the following winter months planning a building campaign that would require little money, a lot of sweat, and  take the better part of two summers.

The original concept drawing for the wheelhouse

 

Friendship Sloops

The design of the Friendship Sloop evolved more than a hundred years ago in the region Muscongus Bay. Built primarily for fishing before the internal combustion engine became ubiquitous, each vessel was a reflection of the unique personality of the man who fished that boat, and what his requirements were. While one waterman might need a small vessel for working single handed close inshore, another might require a much larger vessel to fish deeper waters, or transport goods. As a result, the term “Friendship Sloop” is a recognizable type of boat, that never the less, includes a wide range of variables.
     The Friendship Sloop that you might see today sailing along the New England coast is, more than likely, either a pleasure craft or a day charter. While the later is certainly a working boat, “walking cargo” requires different, more aesthetic, priorities than fishing. However, great variation from boat to boat is still an unquestionable characteristic of the type. In a day and age where most pleasure craft are cast, clone-like, in large quantities, from the same proverbial and literal mold, it is truly refreshing to see such diversity within a single type. As these boats sail into the twenty-first century, they are still recognizable expressions of individuality.
     In many ways, the Friendship Sloop Society celebrates the aforementioned individualism. The visual expression of this becomes obvious at the annual homecoming in Rockland Maine each July. You only have to look at the docked gathering of boats to see that variation and diversity is alive and well.

        If this sound interesting, swing by the gathering next July, you will not find a more welcoming group of sailors anywhere.