In the mid-’80s, I went up the coast to the Mendocino County town of Pt. Arena to visit to visit my ex-nextdoor neighbor Jack Williams, who had built an off-grid homestead in the woods. After I shot photos of his house, Jack said, “There’s someone up here who wants to meet you,” so we drove about five miles east into the hills, then down a long gravel road through redwood trees until we got to a clearing. And there sat the most beautiful little building I’d ever seen. Everything about it was right, right down to (or rather, up to) the crystal glinting at the top of the building’s mast.
Out from the open doors came a 60-ish year old guy with a twinkle in his eye, carrying a battered copy of my book Shelter.
He didn’t even say hello, but crouched down in the doorway, had me do the same, and opened the book to page 4 where there was this painting of a Mandan (Native American) lodge, and said “Look up,” at the interior framing of his shop … identical!
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“I built this from your book,” he said. Moreover, he said he’d built his Japanese-style home across the (Garcia) river from the drawing of a Japanese farm house on page 21 (bottom right sketch) of Shelter.
Wow! I’d been publishing fitness books for 20 years, and it occured to me that if Shelter inspired buildings like these, maybe I ought to check out the building scene now — 27 years after Shelter.
And so, Home Work, published in 2004, turned out to be the sequel to Shelter. It featured Louie and his creations foremost, and had many other buildings inspired by Shelter. And it got me into two more decades of publishing books on building
Louie instantly became my best-of-all-time friend. We clicked on all facets of life: building, design, fishing, homesteading, having fun, exploring the world, red wine, marijuana, and above all: music. We’d both grown up (he was about 6 years older) pre-TV, and listened to the radio. I think we both knew a thousand songs. There was also some, um, bad-boyish behavior in our past lives.
We got together well over 100 times in the next 20 years. I’d drive the three hours up to Pt. Arena, or he’d come down to Bolinas, and we’d often spend a night or two in San Francisco. Every moment with him was a delight.
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I can’t count the number of psychic coincidences we had over the years. Many, many times I’d be thinking of him and the phone would ring.
His work merits more than can be put in one post, so, like my trip to Baja, I’ll do a series of posts on him — not necessarily in order, but once in a while: a dose of Louie’s world.
He passed away a few years ago. I knew he was close to the end, and on a late afternoon I went down to the beach. The tide was pouring out of the lagoon, rushing out to sea as I called his number. His friend Bill picked up the phone and told me that he’d passed just a few minutes before. It gave us both a chill, that Louie had gone out with the tide.
With him gone, there’s a huge vacancy in my life, but there are also the memories (and photos) of this extraordinary person and the joy he left behind
As I get older, I start to realize that so much of what I "have" is also what I "had." Memories, friendships, loves, travels ... gone, but present. I look forward to more Louie.
Lloyd,
This recounting of your meeting Louie for the first time, and realizing that your work had such an impact on the direction of his life sounds so very much like the impact that ‘Builders of the West Coast’ had on me…I received that book as a gift, at a time in my life when I was unconsciously yearning for a new direction in my work, and boy, did that book hit!
I was at the time a framer, building custom houses for people with more money than sense (or style), and was feeling really bummed out about the souless creations I was adding to the world. I poured over ‘Builders’ again and again (and again), soaking in the details, the characters, the whole vibe of what you had documented. It quite literally changed the direction of my life, and refreshed my outlook on the building trade.
Apart from doing the actual building, I was very interested in design, too, and my boss at the time told me to pursue that, because, in his words, framing houses is a young man’s game, and eventually I’ll wear out and not be able to keep up.
So, I began designing small houses and cabins, always thinking about the sweet buildings in ‘Builders’, and figuring out the details that really set them apart, and brought those lessons into my own work. Fast forward almost 20 years and I’m still at it and making a good living, and ‘Builder’s’ is still resonating through me, and my designs.
So, thanks Lloyd for all that you have done and continue to do. I’m certain you’ve been the spark in many, many folk’s lives.
Peace, Pete L., Ontario, Canada