About

Bio

[Author’s Note: I have never written my autobiography before nor keep a diary and thought that this Bio would be brief. However, I was wrong. When I started writing I discovered I had a lot to say about my life and experiences. My apologies for the verbosity! But, as I believe everyone has a story… here’s mine.]

I was born in Miami, FL in 1955, where my parents had met and my father had a large construction business with his two brothers. My brother, my cousin and I had some great fun and adventures there living in a small neighborhood with the beach not too far away. We moved to Charlotte, NC when I was 7 and I spent my elementary school years there. During the summers, we would go to our church summer camp for 3 weeks in Linville, NC where my mom was the camp nurse. I truly loved time spent there hiking and playing in the beautiful NC mountains. I am sure that experience is what bought me back to live here in later years. High school years were spent in north Atlanta, a good place to be for quality of schools and lots of ways to get in trouble as a teenager ;-D. Upon graduation, I went to Georgia Tech in Architecture. A highlight of my college career was what I did in the summer of ‘76. I took the spring semester off and worked loading cement into railroad tanker cars to earn money to buy a motorcycle. Then I rode 13,000 miles across the US and Canada on those motorized 2 wheels, specifically a Honda 550 Four.

I have always valued self sufficiency. When I was in college, I was reading the magazine Mother Earth News, which was one of the first to promote back to the land living. I put an ad in their “Positions and Situations” section looking for an adventure in the summer of 1977. I ended up working on a 60 acres in Coos Bay, OR helping a couple build their homestead. Upon graduation from Georgia Tech with a BS in Architecture, I got a job working for the largest home builder at the time in Atlanta as an assistant superintendent (no building experience whatsoever, just a diploma in hand!) where I learned a tremendous amount about construction. One year was enough of being in the suburbs of the city, so I hitched a ride with my brother to Colorado to work in a ski resort for the winter. After 3 months of skiing, partying and work (in that order) several of us took a trip to Mexico for some needed sun. After that, I had been invited to visit a friend from the ski resort whose family was in Alaska. So with tax refund money from my previous year’s work in hand, I went. This was a huge adventure for me. I hiked for 2 weeks through the Alaskan woods to Homer and then ferried to Kodiak island to work in a shrimp cannery while living in my tent. After that job, a company flew me in a bush plane to the other side of the island to scrape rust off a floating processor ship. Our dorm rooms were on stilts over the water during high tide, and I actually caught a salmon once while fishing through the window! Upon returning to the US from Alaska, I drove my truck across Canada to Maine where I had signed up for a 3 week class in home building at the Shelter Institute, the first owner builder school of it’s kind. A bulletin board there posted work trade situations from former students who were in the process of building their homes. A friend and I spent 2 weeks helping a couple in northern Maine build their house on a beautiful cove where the tides ranged at over 15 feet. Then it was time to return to my parents house in Rome, GA for Christmas.

I spent a year living at home while I explored several interests I had. I raised earthworms under the cages of the rabbits back in the shed in the back yard. I built a geodesic dome solar greenhouse in the front yard with raised beds filled with the compost from the huge pile I had made. That year proved to be a treasured time when I got to know my parents on a different and more personal level. The other thing that happened during this time is I discovered a very unique rubber band toy animal which I started making and selling at festivals and craft shows. When demonstrated and put in their hand, every kid wanted one and a majority of them bought one. Thus, I had a way of making money which I would continue for many years. The travel and ability to make my own schedule was a bonus.

I came to NC in the spring of 1981 to work for Appalachian State University in their new Earth Studies program. The school had been loaned an old house on the top of Valle Crucis mountain to use as a base for teaching organic gardening and renewable energy courses. I was hired as the person to run herd over the students living there and continue the renovation of the building. I remember arriving in March and being completely shocked at how cold it was on top of that windy mountain! But the weather warmed and the organic raised bed gardens grew abundantly. Good friends, good work, good food and good times!

I was now in NC, loved it, and looking for a direction to go in my life. I took a woodworking course at App State during that winter and really enjoyed it and wanted more. I’d heard about a crafts program which included woodworking. The 2 year program turned out to be high quality, everything I wanted to learn, extremely affordable and… oh no! there was a three year waitlist. I found a house to rent in Boone and settled in for the wait. To my delight and surprise, a spot opened for that fall. The next two years were spent at Haywood Community College near Waynesville, NC learning furniture making, photography, drawing, book keeping, etc. Suffice to say, it was and still is an amazing course of study!

After school, I moved to Asheville which in the 80’s was a fun place to be, but without the traffic and housing issues it has today. Contra dancing was big in my life then and it was a great group of people to hang out with. During that time, I worked on a couple of log houses with Peter Gott, sort of a legend in his time, and traveled in Central America for 2 months. This great work (and fun because the crew were all contra dancing friends) experience made me think about finding my own piece of ground to build my home.

In August of 1985 I found 10 acres just east of Burnsville, NC. It was secluded enough (half mile road to get to it) yet still only 10 minutes to town and the realtor would owner finance it for $100 a month! I purchased it and immediately returned to Rome, GA where the geodesic dome greenhouse was still standing but needed to go, dismantled it and put it up on my property next to a little creek. This time, it got the residential makeover with plywood floor laid on pallets, a sleeping loft, wood stove (and roof vent to let excess heat out), iron claw foot bathtub, sink, counter and a 3 foot wide garden bed. Later I added a gravity fed hot water solar panel connected to a 20 gallon storage tank on the loft and a 100 watt solar electric panel. It really was quite comfortable at this point and I lived there for 4 years.

The next structure to go up was a two story shed below the dome. I considered it practice for building the eventual house, and it was. Over the years, it served as a home when my wife was pregnant with our first child and a workshop to make the chairs we sold at craft shows. I started the house in 1988 and the highlight that year was having a work party with contra dance friends coming to help pour the basement slab. I had found a 50’s era concrete mixer which was like a mini concrete truck – shovel the sand, gravel and cement into a hopper, pull a handle to dump it in the drum, let it mix with water and then pull a lever to pour it out! We finished it that day and then had a potluck. Fun times!

The house took about 4 years to build. During that time I got married and we would travel and do craft shows on weekends while building and making product during the week. Push came to shove for moving into the house in 1992 when our daughter was born. The exterior doors went on the day before my wife came home from the hospital thanks to the help of a friend. Our son came 4 years later. As the kids grew up, we established a life of having the freedom to homeschool them while travelling around the southeast to sell and finding warmer weather for a while each winter. In between shows, we would enjoy small town life and our off grid home in the woods on the mountain.

That’s right! The house was off grid using a micro hydro generator on the stream solely for electricity. When I bought my first solar PV electric panel for the dome, I got on the mailing list for a new magazine called Home Power. The first issue was on newsprint, but it made me realize I had enough drop and flow on Plum Branch creek to power our lives. The off grid system eventually evolved to include 6 PV panels on the roof, a 2500 watt inverter, 8 deep cycle batteries, and a solar hot water system. With a passive solar design having lots of south facing glass, in floor hydronic heating on the first floor and wood stove with heat directed upstairs; it was a very comfortable house.

Just after the dawn of the new millennium, we decided to put the kid’s chairs we made online, so the traveling craft show business turned into an ecommerce website, EverywhereChair.com. Starting out in our home, the UPS truck driver would make the half mile trek up our bumpy road to pick up orders going out for the day. As the business grew, we moved to town and rented several different places, each one having it’s pros and cons. In 2008, we decided to build an office/warehouse. Finally a loading dock and not having to push fully loaded pallets across gravel parking lots! The product line expanded greatly over the years and we added personalization to our chairs as well as began manufacturing directors chair replacement covers. In October 2019, my partner bought out my half of the business and I was retired! Also, being divorced 2 1/2 years ago, I am single and in charge of my own destiny. Ready for an adventure!

2020 will mark the 35th year since I moved to Burnsville. I’ve seen it go from no traffic lights and two lane winding road to a four lane highway and from a dry county to a place where you can have a pizza with a beer at our local amazing brewery. People come here for the natural beauty and there is awesome hiking as well as multiple rivers for fishing and boating. It was and is a great place to raise kids with quality schools and safe surroundings. Most of all, the community cares about the place and other residents, and everyone works to make it better. I have hosted several cyclists passing thru on warmshowers.org, and they comment on what a nice area this is. I look forward to finding similar small towns on my travels and getting to know the people and culture there in a small way.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
― Dr. Seuss, from Oh, the Places You’ll Go!