I designed this gas fire feature. It’s a 4-piece interlocking granite stone fire feature that I cut and shaped from a 4x8’ slab of Maine granite with an HPC Fire insert.

I love the perspective of this photo. It shows the details of my design. For instance we created this small ledge to jut out about 4-1/2” and flattened it so that the client and her friends could set a wine glass on top of it.

This drystone fire pit was designed by me but with plenty of input from the homeowners.  ​We cut and shaped all of this Canadian Basalt on-site and included LED plate lights under the capstones.  

This is Dan Patterson who owns Santa Barbara Forge & Iron sitting inside of the 60” wide sculpted bronze fire feature I commissioned him to create. I worked with HPC Fire in Ohio and designed a custom gas insert to mimic all the details of a camp fire.

This is an excellent overhead shot of this contemporary fire lounge I designed and built with my talented team and 3 other craftsmen from Santa Barbara Forge & Iron, Stellar Jay Designs, and Northwest Outdoor Lighting. As a group of collaborators we created something unique and stunning.

​This drystone fire table consists of a 3'x6' Basalt stone slab (supplied by HDG Building Materials) with an Adz edge-finish and thermal-finished surface.

​This is a drystone bench wall and firepit that I designed and built from Quartzite stone that we hand-cut, shaped and finished on site.  Since this is a standard wood-burning fire pit I built in 3 vents to aid in the air flow.

In 2004, some friends showed me a book about Dan Snow, a drystone artist from the Vermont.  A few years later I saw a photo of a beautiful stone fire bowl he built.  I tried in vain to find a client who wanted me to build one. Finally, after waiting, I decided to build this quick one at one of our rentals in Colorado. I collected the stone from the side of Animas mountain after a mudslide.  It’s not at the level of craftsmanship I prefer and so I will continue searching for a client to build a stunning fire bowl for.

Using the drystone method I designed the walls with 600 lb. Basalt stone planks (72” x 18” x 6”) with top and bottom thermaled surfaces and pitched faces. The textured granite risers are monolithic and extrude from 2” inside the wall. The patio is built from granite planks with 3 rotating textures (adze, thermaled and lychee) that are dry laid on a permeable system and 1/8” open joints.

​A dry-laid patio using full-color, variegated Blue Stone in a Yorkstone pattern.

We used Maine granite for the patio, fire feature, capstones and other key stones. We did a rough butt-fit for the patio stones with approximately 1/8” joints on a permeable base system.

Beginning… I co-designed these bronze-plated planter boxes at the base of this 75 linear foot slope.

During… we used vacuum lifters to set these monolithic granite risers that extrude from about 2” inside the Basalt stone wall planks.

During… using vaccum lifters to set textured granite landings at rest stops along the 75 linear foot riser system.

Finished!

We cut, tooled and butt-fitted these varied pieces on a dry-laid patio next to a granite riser and slab.

These risers are cut from an approximate 8’ wide boulder pulled from the Cascade mountains near Seattle.

​This is a 3rd story view of a small urban space renovation we did in Seattle for my buddy from the Marine Corps.  Hot tub, Ipe hardwood landing, stairs and lower patio set on Buzon pedestals, dry-set 2x2' slate stone patio and stone fire table.     

​We used Cell Tek (a cellular confinement system) to create the build-up for the risers around this dry-laid bluestone patio.

Before… Again, I used the Cell Tek product to do the build-up for this patio.

Finished! Dry laid variegated bluestone with true blue risers.

We demo’d out a hideous entry way and dry-laid these 300 lb. textured Basalt stone planks. They were butt-fitted with about a 3% slope towards the wall and riser on the left side of the image. We created a hidden channel system underneath the wall and granite riser for water to flow to a holding area. We used a Therma-hexx heating system under everything.

We undercut all the wall stone and the granite riser and installed a hidden drain channel so there was no disruption of the aesthetics and experience of the double entry way.

You can see the 1:12 batter I built on the back of the wall.  This means for every 12" of height the wall angles inward 1".​

In 2019, I built this simple “stone lookout" out back of our rental home in Tucson, Arizona. I worked on this very slowly for about 5 months. I collected nearly 200 rocks down in the desert wash, carried them up the small hill and made piles. On weekends, I worked them as little as possible and set 1 to 5 stones at a time. There are about 150 stones set in this rough-built feature. “Stone Lookout" is more about function than form for me.

Why the function? Recently, we watched the Israeli series “Fauda” and in one scene the main character, Doron, is sitting and drinking coffee from a small glass and it reminded me of a vivid memory I have of squatting around a fire and drinking tea in a Bedouin camp in Southern Israel when I was 24 years-old. After I left the Marines, I was accepted in a one-year program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I've always been a curious person about humans and different cultures and my goal that year was to explore as much of the land as possible.

in late 1993, I planned a day trip to the Jabaliyah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. I found a Bedouin taxi driver in Jerusalem who agreed to drive me there. On the way there he asked me if it was okay if we stopped to see his family and have tea.

Upon arrival, I greeted his wife who was squatting by a fire cooking something. A few others walked over and everyone just dropped down into the squat position. Soon a hot, brown tea was poured into small glasses with a bit of sugar. I remember feeling how incredible it was to experience what was for them a normal, ritualistic part of their daily life: Taking a break, squatting and drinking hot tea from small glasses.

So, I decided that “Stone Lookout” would be a space to squat and drink hot tea or coffee as often as possible for me and my wife.

I was part of a workshop - Stonefest - in 2008 outside of Seattle, Washington where we built this 40’ long drystone bridge from Wisconsin limestone and Tenino sandstone.

I set this 11' basalt column and a blacksmith forged the horizontal and vertical steel arms for the purpose of re-growing the Wysteria back up and around the column and out on the arms.

I designed and built this with Pine logs harvested around Mancos, Colorado.

​This is a drystone arch and columns.  The big vertical stone acts also as the "springer stone" and you can see the dark "springer" on the right column.  I built this with 4 other Seattle-area masons for a home show.

I designed and built this studio in downtown Tucson. The wood wall feature is made from thermo-treated Ashwood from Indiana.

I got this untreated, natural 10 oz. canvas from my friend and canvas designer/sewer Josh in Colorado. Hung these ceiling “panels” to hide some of the rafters and soften up the area.

I designed this suspended "conceptual tipi” and Josh from Wrought Canvas in Colorado sewed it for me.