Eldridge

  Finished this job up a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to posting pics. This is down in Boothbay, on an amazing little piece of property that protrudes out into Boothbay Harbor, leaving the house surrounded on three sides by water. Seals climb on the rocks in the backyard. Scallop boats drag the deep water, sometimes all day long. Lobster boats idle in circles around the traps...
  The style of stonework was a little different for us. The owners wanted to replicate the look of some of the crumbling stone walls on the property, so we had to kind of toss everything we know out the window and try to create something really rough and erratic, yet still retain some kind of aesthetic standards.
  Also, this was another Knickerbocker job, done through Dan Ucci of Ledge Hill Creations, who is right now working on the fireplace inside...

Cultured Stone On Barter's Island

  Here are some shots of a couple hundred square feet of cultured stone we installed on a home in Barter's Island. The customers are friendly--A. actually made us chocolate chip/zucchini cupcakes yesterday-- and the view is amazing.  I am fond of this particular style of cultured stone we are using, as far as c.s. goes, and the installation has been relatively pain-free, when it isn't raining.

Pratt's Island

  Congratulations to Dan Ucci, owner of Ledge Hill Creations, on the completion of one hell of a big three-year stone project. The landscapers, stonemasons, carpenters, and designers were all there last week putting on the finishing touches before the Down East Magazine shoot on Monday, so I sneaked in for a few shots of my own. I only worked there for a few winters--the majority of the credit goes to Dan's full-time crew; Danny Harrington, Richard Ware, Lance Carlezon, Joel Oyer, Jesse Casas--but I felt privileged to have the hand in it that I did.

   Richard Ware

   And Danny Harrington

Boothbay Veneer

  Damon and I finished the wall in the front of the house yesterday.  I have to say, I was satisfied with our work. We both were. We are pretty harsh critics, especially of our own product; but that little wall looks damn good, if I do say so myself.

Cause For Celebration

  The chimney is finished! The last corner stone put in place yesterday and the empty joints filled with mortar. Just a final and thorough cleaning needed to complete the job. It feels great to stand back and look at that monolithic structure in its final state.

Hearth

  One side is completed and the hearth-stone in place. Heading down this morning to install the other one.

Fitzburg Slippers

  "Stan the Lobster Man" does carpentry for Boothbay Home Builders off-season. He's a real character and Damon and I have a good time joking around with him while we're working. Well, Stan came up to me the other morning and says, "Hey! I see you got your Fitzburg slippers on."
  "What's that?" I asked.
  "Fitzburg slippers. That's when you take your old boots when they start gettin' all cracked and beat and you cut the tops off so they'll be more comfortable. Fitzburg slippers."
  I guess I got me some Fitzburg slippers, and cheap.

Some Shots Without the Staging

Joachim and Boaz

   Dan and Paul got their pillars in place Saturday and they are quite impressive. They worked their butts off to get them in place and I am actually really impressed that they managed to get them in at all. Every so often I would walk outside and see the two of the prying with bars and blocking and hoisting and I felt grateful to not be involved. Seriously, they had to slip these nine-foot monstrosities in between a concrete slab and a porch roof with three inches to spare. It was amazing.
  Now, walking in the front door of this house is like a religious experience. It's like entering the front door of King Solomon's Temple, which was flanked by two similar pillars named Joachim and Boaz. In Jewish mysticism, the Tree of Life was also flanked by the two same pillars. They are kind of like Yin and Yang, representing the positive and negative, respectively; or more accurately, "mercy" and "severity". Quite impressive.

Newfangled Contraption

  With the help of a newfangled contraption that Dan Ucci designed and had build, we are able to start putting up some of the high stones.

Mantle

  The mantle is up and a few stones of the upper section. Dan is bringing the indoor crane he had build specifically for this project, as the beam and chain-fall will take us no higher.

Fire

  Here are a few shots of me using the acetylene torch to "thermal" the exposed cut edges of the stones to give them a more natural look. Soon after these shots were taken I tripped, fell onto the torch, and became engulfed in flames.  Now, much like the stones, I too have a "more natural look".

With Some Help From The GMC

  Dan, Damon, and I have been out in Pittston this week continuing the fabrication. The persistent cold has made for some chilly mornings, but the structure is coming along. This section is all veneer that will be above the fireplace, so the stones sitting on the ground will actually be six feet high when we install them down south.

Ready For The Mantle

The First Lintel In Place

  The first lintel is set, along with the adjoining stones around the top. It was not a walk in the park. I sure hope it gets easier as we get higher. Oh wait, that isn't possible.

Last Jam

  There it is, the last jam stone. This one was particularly difficult because we had to make a three-dimensional cardboard template, which we used in Pittston to fabricate the stone. It fits perfectly now, but that was not without hours of adjustment grinding and taking the stone up and down and worrying that it was not going to work. As it stands, we still have to cut the top down and notch out for the lintel, but at least it's up.

Fabricating The Upper Reaches

 Out in Pittston for the last few days with Damon and Mark, fabricating the upper portion of the chimney. There is much more completed, however, than shown in the photo. I waited till the end of the day and by then, half of the stones were removed from the structure for pinning and adjustment.

Granite Splitting With Dan

Dan Ucci, owner of Ledge Hill Creations, has been good enough to keep me busy this winter, along with seven or eight other masons, and we're all pretty grateful. Work tends to be pretty scarce during these long, cold Maine winters and anybody who is fortunate enough to work through them, is happy to do so. Well, 'happy' may be a stretch--it can often be darn cold and miserable--but work is work, and we'll take it.
This is actually the second winter in a row I have worked for Dan. He has an enormous project going on just south of Boothbay that is now in its third year. It has an impressive array of walls, columns, chimneys, pools, cabanas, outdoor fireplaces, and patios; and I will post some photos of it soon. The sheer quantity of stone on that site and the work that has been done to it truly boggles the mind.
The granite we have been splitting for the past few weeks is actually for a see-through fireplace on another site just a few miles down the road. My granite splitting has been limited and I have never done veneer with stones of this size, so this is a great learning experience for me. I will attempt in the next week or two to document as much of this as I can. Basically, Dan and I are fabricating the entire double-sided fireplace at his studio, then hauling it all down to Boothbay and installing it. The installation will be an interesting process in itself and not without challenges, so making sure that all each stone is ready to be laid before it goes in the house is imperative.