Building Two Houses in Big Sur in the '60s

House of bridge timbers at Rancho Rico, Big Sur, California

In 1967, I moved from Mill Valley to Big Sur and worked as foreman on a job building this house out of bridge timbers. The architect was George Brook-Kothlow. George had purchased all the timbers from a bridge in the town of Duncans Mills on the Russian River. They had torn down the redwood bridge to build one of concrete, and George had bought all the hand-hewn 12 × 12 posts, 16-foot-long 6-by-16s and 16-foot-long 8-by-22s.

Carpenters Paul and Seth Wingate went down with me and we lived on the site, Rancho Rico, a 400-acre ranch with two private beaches — just south of the Pfeiffer Canyon bridge. The ranch was owned by Cyril Chappellet, one of the owners of Lockheed, and the land on which we built the house was a 10-acre parcel owned by his daughter Claire, which she called Hill of the Hawk.

We remodeled some chicken coops for living quarters. We cooked on a camp stove and I made a sink out of a washtub, with drainage down the hill. I made $4 and hour, Paul and Seth $3 an hour. Ah, the ’60s!

I spent about a year on the project. It was a struggle. We had to splice together two 8-by-22s for the 32-foot-long rafters — they weighed 550 pounds each — and lift them into place with a boom on the back of the ranch backhoe. There were 11 concrete pours for the foundation, each one coming 40 miles down the winding coast from Monterey. I quit after we got the building framed.

(About 10 years ago, I went down for a visit. The family had moved into the chicken coops and they were renting the house for $13,000 a month.)

After Rancho Rico, I moved south and built this home:

My Home in Big Sur

I split the shakes from deadfall redwood trees in the woods near Palo Colorado Canyon. I let the 30’ 2x14 floor girders run wild for a deck in the future. I had a small photo lab under the house (door at right, above). Minimal windows on this side facing west and Highway One. At top left, you can see the trees around the home of Boris and Filippa Veren, owners of the land.

I built this house in 1967–68 at Burns Creek in Big Sur, California (about two miles north of Esalen). The 14 posts were 12-foot-long 6-by-12” double-track railroad ties on 8-foot centers. The girders, as well as the rafters were 30-foot-long, 2-by-14’s that had been salvaged by Cleveland Wreckers from an old horse stable in San Francisco.

Sheathing was lumber from a farm labor camp I tore down in Salinas, and the shakes were split from deadfall trees I found in Palo Colorado Canyon. I used studs in between the posts. For shear panels (diagonal bracing) on one 8-foot-wide section on each of the 4 walls, I used ⅝″ plywood, nailed 2″ on centers around the edges and 6″ o.c. on the interior studs. I used annular grooved nails, which are stronger than smooth nails.

Then foundation was a grade beam with concrete delivered (40 miles down the coast) from Pacific Grove, on top of which I mixed and poured 14 round piers shaped by cardboard Sonotubes. Steel brackets embedded in the piers held the posts.

Flooring and roof deck were 2-by-8” tongue-and-groove local Monterey Pine from a sawmill in the Carmel Valley.

It took me about a year. I did all the carpentry, plumbing, and wiring solo. It’s a very simple house, a big shed really, and the carpentry is less than exquisite, but it got a roof over our heads. Oh yes, total materials costs were $8,000.

I developed a water supply by building a little dam in a spring 600′ above the house, and running plastic pipe down the hillside. I started some small-scale farming and we had a big garden and I would pick up fish guts for the garden in a 50-gallon drum on the Monterey wharf (in our 1960 VW van) on our weekly shopping trips into town.

There were a few things about it that didn’t exactly fit the building codes, so once when the building inspector came, I put on a Jimi Hendrix record loud when I saw him pull up, and he was so rattled that he didn’t notice the non-compliances.

When I decided to leave Big Sur (and embarked on a 5-year period of building geodesic domes), I sold the house to the owners of the land for $11,000.

Lots of windows on the east side of house, facing the ridge and sunrise

When I visit, the present owners always tell me how much they love the house. They let me camp out next to a studio above the house. I generally sneak into the hot springs at Esalen during the night (although this is getting harder to do these days).

Item of interest: Barbara Spring, an artist who bought the house from the land owners in the early ’70s, was a friend of the architect Phillip Johnson (post-modern architect known for his Glass House, co-designer [with Mies van der Rohe] of the Seagram Building in NYC, etc.). Johnson was looking for a house to buy in Big Sur and when he came to visit Barbara on a rainy day (with the Ashley Automatic wood stove warming the house), he told her this was the kind of place he would love to find.

Creek-fed pool in canyon below house (Burns Creek)

I’d made a deal with the owners of the land, Boris and Filippa Veren, to build my house on their land in exchange for being their caretaker. This was their pool in the canyon below the house. Creek water flowed from a pipe into the pool, so there was no need for chlorine.

Each night after I finished work, I’d go down to the pool. I’d bow to the nearby family of redwoods, then bow in each of the four directions before diving in.