Early B&W Pictures:  The Stone House   Interior   Construction  The Builder   Early Family  Garden Pictures

Early Slides: Background  Spring in the Garden  Other Seasons  Propagation  Specimens The Stone House

Introduction

    

    Here Bob uses a crowbar to align one of the
    first rocks. As the walls grew, he carried all the rocks up ladders
    and scaffolds. He dug up all the rocks in the house from the
    grounds as he planted the rhododendrons.

 

    
To haul the rocks to the construction site,
    Bob dragged them on a stone boat, or sled, made of heavy timbers.
    I can still remember him struggling with a hand crank to start
    the cantankerous dozer.

    
He placed an early order for the truck
    and received one of the first off the assembly line after World
    War II.

    



    

    
Bob built the first section of the house
    over a basement. The small room at right contained a coal room
    and furnace. I used the other rooms for a variety of building
    projects, including a kayak, a pram, and a lawnmower engine car.

    
Bob's use of masonry was strongly influenced
    by his bicycle trip around the gardens and estates of Europe
    in 1934.