to build a house | Tim Seggerman

As it was

As it wasn't

Materials:

cypress, beech, red birch, ash, cherry, bamboo, douglas fir, pine, maple, papyrus, mulberry (washi), green slate, aluminum, cast iron and glass.

With a few exceptions (Aalto, Risom, Noguchi) all furniture, cabinetry and doors were built on site.

From any vantage point in the house, all four points of the compass are in clear view.

The floors are 5/4 X 12 cypress, face nailed with 2" wrought iron cut nails.

Old school.

Though certainly not as poetic as DuChamp's corner door that is open and closed at the same time, the sliders operate on a similar principal.

The 5/4" cypress exterior was left untreated. In autumn and winter the house is indistinguishable from the surrounding woods

Photography Paul Warschol (the nice ones), Carol Kirkland (of me), TS (the rest)

Antonin Raymond, the great Czech modernist architect and compatriot of Junzo Yoshimura and George Nakashima, designed, in 1940, the house I later grew up in, from the age of 11. It was built primarily of reclaimed lumber from an old barn and stone from a nearby stream. Being a New York City kid, I was not "of the farm", but this simply crafted modernist gem still represents what I treasure in the workings of simple materials in space.

Frenchtown house with Raymond wing on the right

An Occurrence at Lower Creek Bridge

Asbestos siding. Everything had to go.

3 proud gentlemen doing exacting work

The house at it's most optimistic, free as a bird.

Rear, face to the morning sun. 30' deck with 18' high canopy, to the evening sun.

30' x 3' x 2' firewood storage under deck front.

Ellie... splendor in the grass

Pre-fab insulated foundation walls dropped onto 12" of crushed stone.

father & sons framing crew, sadly, very MAGA

Plywood sheathing, views are henceforth framed.

5/4 cypress siding on 1/4 plastic mesh over house wrap, allowing the house to breathe easily.

My neighbors, in the farm across Donkey Lane, cultivate hay, christmas trees and fruit trees.

4" perforated pipes wrap the entire perimeter sending all ground water far in to the woods.

framing in the cool fall sunlight, birds, no radio.

With a roof, fixed views and entry door, it is both open and closed... civilized.

Cypress clad, grown in water, needs no coating, will turn silvery grey and last 100 years.

TC and Joe's farm, from my kitchen window.

In the course of building, three 75'+ oak trees

fell within a hair's breadth of the house, breaking with thunderous cracks and oceanic shaking of the ground... barely (!!) missing the house.

Hunk of bluestone for the entrance

33' long cypress/doug fir railing is set forward 12" from the fir posts that it would conventionally be attached to... allowing an unbroken length.

I still had much clearing to do even after felling over 60 trees on my little 3/4 acre lot..

All the doors were made in my shop in Brooklyn.

The flooring, like so much else, is 5/4 cypress and a bitch to straighten over 16' lengths and hand pounded with 2" iron cut nails.

Floors in, wood stove in, ply on all the walls and ceiling. Next, sectioning with white sheetrock.

Think Japan. Asymmetry. Mondrian.

Before the framing is covered up... still feeling like a tree house... birds in the rafters.

One day... to read, write and bed down here.

Cabinetry on the right, surrounds the stair entry to the "English basement" studio, bath, storage, anything goes area.

Entering when everything is still possible.

Cabinetry of all kinds begin to define the space. Geppetto at work... .

View to the west, where the dining nook will be.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Even with 13' ceilings and walls of mostly glass, the cast iron wood stove kept the place

"warm as momma's oven".

In 2014, I received a notice from the Penn (B)East Pipeline Co. stating they were getting the final approvals to build a 24" X 116 mile fracked gas pipeline that would run 25' from my door (with a 1/2 mile blast zone). They would take land by eminent domain, approved by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision.The chances of local activists and landowners defeating this monstrosity appeared close to hopeless... one in a thousand I was told. For 7 dogged years, we (meaning everyone, not just folk directly in the pipeline's path...lawyers, farmers, business owners, teachers, children, policemen) showed up tirelessly, with unflagging spirit and sent the marauders back to Texas. I resumed work and 15 years, 500 back and forth trips from the city and hundreds of deer ticks later I received the C/O... and the life of the house begins.

Extra special thanks to my baby sister Carol, who always kept the lamp trimmed and burning,

to TC and Joe, my dream neighbors, who kept watch from across the road and another time,

and never to be forgotten... Ellie, Pancho and Archie.