Weird houses of Vermont
I've seen some delightfully strange buildings these last few days.
It all started with Blake's place at Stowe, a late 50's a-frame that slept 20 comfortably and was designed around a 20' long banquet table moved here from an estate in the Alps. Wild.
Then Architecture Table organized a great tour of some of the Mad River Valley's craziest architecture including work by David Sellers and Jim Sanford. I was really lucky to be in town for that.
The final stop on that tour was at Yestermorrow Design Build School in Warren, VT. I'd applied for an internship there from January until March and I found out during this visit that I've been waitlisted. Four applicants have been offered the position and two have accepted. Keep your fingers crossed!
The next day, Will and I went up to Wolcott where, in a field, we met up with Dick, one of his old friends from the Center For Northern Studies. Seeing as Wolcott is right next to Hardwick, and Dick seemed to know the area like the clutch on this tractor, I asked him if he knew where Peter Eisenman's "House II" was. "You mean the Frank Lloyd Wrong house?" he asked, laughing. Turns out Dick had rented the place for some students years ago. "It was a house where you worried about your cats." he said referring to the "voids" (read: holes) Eisenman left in the floors in his practicality-be-damned attempt to bring Chomskyblather to 3D form. A few years ago I read that a Dutch couple bought the place, but I couldn't get near it. Well, I saw it. Check that one off.
Hearing I was interested in architecture, Dick invited me to see his "tower house." Standing in a field at the edge of dense Northeast Kingdom forest, I couldn't imagine what he was talking about, but Will and I followed his muck boots through the woods and up a narrow path to a weather-beaten stack of rooms towering out of the ground like the trees around it. There was a ladder up the side to provide an alternate means of egress, and access to rooms and decks without interior ciruclation (stairs). It had burnt (as some of the similarly crazy original Prickly Mountain houses did) and has since been taken over by woodland creatures. It, like the man who built it, has gone "back to the land." A L.L. Bean thermometer indicating what ski wax to apply still hung on the tree outside the kitchen window.
It excites me to think that so many of these mysterious and personal structures litter the woods of Vermont. It may not be a particularly good thing, but it fascinates me just the same.
On my way home, I stopped in Johnson, where I:
-Checked out some art
-Admired some plaid
-Learned about yarn, roving, batts, and felt
It all started with Blake's place at Stowe, a late 50's a-frame that slept 20 comfortably and was designed around a 20' long banquet table moved here from an estate in the Alps. Wild.
Then Architecture Table organized a great tour of some of the Mad River Valley's craziest architecture including work by David Sellers and Jim Sanford. I was really lucky to be in town for that.
The final stop on that tour was at Yestermorrow Design Build School in Warren, VT. I'd applied for an internship there from January until March and I found out during this visit that I've been waitlisted. Four applicants have been offered the position and two have accepted. Keep your fingers crossed!
The next day, Will and I went up to Wolcott where, in a field, we met up with Dick, one of his old friends from the Center For Northern Studies. Seeing as Wolcott is right next to Hardwick, and Dick seemed to know the area like the clutch on this tractor, I asked him if he knew where Peter Eisenman's "House II" was. "You mean the Frank Lloyd Wrong house?" he asked, laughing. Turns out Dick had rented the place for some students years ago. "It was a house where you worried about your cats." he said referring to the "voids" (read: holes) Eisenman left in the floors in his practicality-be-damned attempt to bring Chomskyblather to 3D form. A few years ago I read that a Dutch couple bought the place, but I couldn't get near it. Well, I saw it. Check that one off.
Hearing I was interested in architecture, Dick invited me to see his "tower house." Standing in a field at the edge of dense Northeast Kingdom forest, I couldn't imagine what he was talking about, but Will and I followed his muck boots through the woods and up a narrow path to a weather-beaten stack of rooms towering out of the ground like the trees around it. There was a ladder up the side to provide an alternate means of egress, and access to rooms and decks without interior ciruclation (stairs). It had burnt (as some of the similarly crazy original Prickly Mountain houses did) and has since been taken over by woodland creatures. It, like the man who built it, has gone "back to the land." A L.L. Bean thermometer indicating what ski wax to apply still hung on the tree outside the kitchen window.It excites me to think that so many of these mysterious and personal structures litter the woods of Vermont. It may not be a particularly good thing, but it fascinates me just the same.
On my way home, I stopped in Johnson, where I:
-Checked out some art
-Admired some plaid
-Learned about yarn, roving, batts, and felt
csl
posted by carl and will at 4:13 PM
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