Mono
Lake is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed
at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an
outlet causes high levels of salts to
accumulate in the lake. These salts also make the lake water alkaline. This desert lake has
an unusually productive ecosystem based on brine shrimp that thrive in its
waters, and provides critical habitat for two million annual migratory birds
that feed on the shrimp and alkali flies. The most unusual feature of Mono Lake are its dramatic tufa towers emerging from the surface.
These rock towers form when underwater springs rich in calcium mix with the
waters of the lake, which are rich in carbonates. (Wikipedia)
When my husband Jeffrey and I blew into Mono County, California in the spring of 1977, we were in a position only to punt. It seemed to be our sole option since his father had changed his mind about inviting us to build a home on the lakefront property Jeffrey and his brother Sisal would someday inherit. We didn’t, however, give up on Lee Vining and its fantastic environs. It was that unique location that had called to us with such clarity.
The family-owned property was a chunk of the Mono Lake
shoreline bristling with tufa towers and underlayed with salt flats that offered
an endless source of the mineral crystals that could be harvested and marketed
to remunerative effect. The Brandt clan bottled
and sold the salt for many years and enjoyed its health enhancing benefits as
well as consistent profits. It routinely
performed miraculous feats of physical healing.
I have found nothing so soothing to my irritated nasal tissue. One of our best friends claimed that after he
was told to report to the hospital for amputation of his gangrenous right foot,
he instead spent an entire summer ritually soaking it in Mono Lake, 2 ½ times
saltier than the ocean. It completely healed. Long a professional skier and tour guide, he
was able to return to his important and necessary career. The US FDA would surely look askance at Mono
Lake salt. Since it is apparently
innocuous, nobody is likely to sue anybody, but
since there is no big money to be made, nobody is likely to investigate the science behind its ameliorative
affect.
The entire lake and surround has since been reclassified under
eminent domain and gleefully ingested by governmental organizations, but in
1977 it was still very much a private entity.
Jeffrey’s old man, Otto Brandt, had for many summers parked his camper-enhanced
pickup truck on the property and enjoyed the clear briny sea air, at 6785’ of elevation,
on the shore of California’s prettiest salt lake.
The location morphed everything it encountered. Even the local Indian tribes, offshoots of
the Paiute band, that came to define that indigenous human habitat, became themselves
an oddity. They camped at agreed upon
times of the year along the lakeshore, chowing down on the larvae of the flies
that populated the salty flats, and gathered the nuts of the many pinion pines
that grew heartily throughout the area.
There wasn’t much else to eat except an occasional rabbit, chipmunk, or
pronghorn antelope, slow enough to get caught.
Maybe it was the limited and peaceful diet that urged the Natives toward
a quiet settled attitude of acceptance.
By the time we arrived, most of the fly eaters had been
absorbed into the dominant population, working for LA Department of Water and
Power (DWP), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), or just squatting extra-legally
in tents on BLM property. Interactions
were colorful. Our favorite example was
Cecil. He got around by limping along
the highway, feigning incapacity. As
soon as we would pull over to ask where he was headed, he would shove his Army
issue metal crutches under his arm, punctuate the moment with an exuberant war
whoop, and sprint for our Land Cruiser.
We didn’t mind. It was a charming
prevarication. His opportunities were
limited. We appreciated how hard it is
to control out-of-control circumstances.
He was always good for a yarn or two, knew most of the local history,
and gladly shared it. I was sad to hear
years later that after one hitchhike into Lee Vining to get liquored up, he succumbed
to sleep underneath a parked car and froze to death.
Even as the location had dictated the evolution of local
indigenes, so it worked its will on Jeffrey and Dorothy Brandt. He took his new BS degree in Industrial Arts from
North Texas State University to the local building department, was pressed into
service as a Mono County Building Inspector, and began to earn a decent income. I was bored and confused about what to do
without an engineering job, and not wanting to stagnate into a resentful
domesticity. So, when a knock on the
door announced the wife of a local architect, I agreed to see if they could do
what they promised: teach me how to design houses.
With our three sons, Dale (19), Lane (14), and Kurt (3),
Jeffrey and I settled into a colorful old house just around the shoreline from
the Brandt enclave and decided to give it a try. The house, built by a local eccentric named
Pat Kelly, nestled among the tufa formations, and was bereft of
electricity. A gasoline generator
provided direct current for whatever was artfully wired to run when it was
chugging along, punctuated by occasional backfires. Otherwise the site was powerless and
mercifully quiet. We approved the
independent lifestyle the home stood for.
A propane refrigerator kept things cold; a wood stove kept things
warm—at least warm enough.
Pat Kelly had found a hollow tufa tower and set up a tiny
wood stove in it where on the occasion of pleasant weather he camped out. It was the only tufa with a stovepipe. Lane, a confirmed romantic, moved his bedroom
furniture right in and set up housekeeping.
All went well until he awoke nose to nose with a creature he wasn’t able
to certify as a friendly. He moved back into the house. In Lee Vining proper, he took Mono High
School by storm, became a star running back on the football team and later moved
to starting Quarterback and Team Captain.
He won lead in the school play his junior year, but in spite of all that,
followed Dale back to West Virginia to matriculate.
Dale got a job with Cal Trans (California Department of
Transportation) driving their monster snow movers. They let him take the high-country-snow-specific
driving test even though he was blind in one eye, so as not to fault themselves
for discrimination. The test consisted
of negotiating an oversized truck through an orange cone array under the
critical eye of Cal Trans certified experts. They were sure he would fail it, since depth
perception requires two good eyes. But he
aced the test, outscoring all the other applicants, overturned not a single
cone, and was hired for the job forthwith.
Later he signed on with June Mountain Ski Resort where he groomed the
slopes with Thiokol Snow Cats, but he missed West Virginia too much and headed
back to country roads and mountain mommas.
Kurt loved his preschool teacher, but became the first
kid in Lee Vining ever to flunk kindergarten.
He, with a great deal of patient forbearance, explained to his teacher
that he intended to be a race car driver, and as it follows, would not be
needing all that adding and subtracting stuff, much less those a’s, b’s, nor c’s. I was confident the future would sort this
all out. It did.
We loved our scenic views of the lake and respected its
changing weather patterns. One time we
were horrified to witness emergency crews recovering four unfortunate people
who had ventured out on the lake during questionable weather. The rescue equipment paraded slowly and
respectfully past our house, bearing the bodies to their stricken
relatives. The victims’ boat had capsized,
and there was nothing left to do but grieve.
“Careful” became our operative code—our watchword.
I began commuting to Bridgeport, Mono’s county seat to
work for the architect, who had arranged for three professional drawing tables
to outfit his upstairs home office.
Since I already knew how to draw, thanks to technical drawing classes at
Carnegie Mellon, and could do axonometric and perspective construction spreads,
we were set to do some serious work.
Mono County was a down-to-basics kind of place, and certified though he was, Rufus Hale didn’t do the
whole architectural package. There was little
market for it. Local building
contractors wanted only a good plan set and any necessary calculations to win
project approved from the Building Department up in Bridgeport. We gave them what they wanted. He was a Registered
Professional Architect, so his stamp was
all that was needed for the Department to certify
his plans. It was a good place to learn
how to make a living by the pencil, one sheet at a time.
The Hales held my hand as I learned, one careful vellum after
the next, to turn out a well-executed plan set.
Making like a sponge, I learned what I needed to, interviewing the
customers and serving their individual needs.
As soon as I could fly, the Hales let me. I enjoyed the work, the creative outlet, and the
beautiful scenery to be appreciated on the daily commute from Lee Vining to Bridgeport. That took me across Conway summit at 8143
feet, the highest point on US Route 395.
It is truly God’s country. The
Indians called it the place where the Great Spirit dwells. The beauty was all the religion I needed. Every trip was a prayer.
It could have gone on that way forever, but Mrs. Hale
began repeatedly showing up with bruises, an occasional black eye that she
tried to cover with makeup, and odd changes to her gait. I asked her if she needed help, and she broke
into tears. Rufus, it turned out, in
spite of the “his and hers” underwear blessed by the local certified Mormon official, that was supposed to purify
their thoughts, was venting his existential frustration on the body of his
beloved spouse. It was a remote
location, where I was enclosed eight hours every day with a big man who had a
problem with his temper, and his wife whom he was beating. I was frightened for her, and also for
myself, having never subjected myself to testicular violence. Both my husbands could yell, but never raised
a hand against me. They knew that
wouldn’t play. When I explained my fears
to Mrs. Hale and apologized to her for having to move on, she pleaded with
tears running down her face, “Please don’t leave me alone with him.” What could I say? I urged her to consider that it was high time
for her also to depart, and I was out of there.
Jeffrey supported my decision and made himself useful as only
a nine-to-five official building inspector, fairly compensated, gaining
expertise on the job, and transferring that facility to my growing need to learn
about construction in the Mono Basin. We
owned one drafting table, and set it up in Kelly’s old attic, centered in a shed
dormer that overlooked the back yard.
The leveled enclosure out back was gigantic, so we made a serious
garden. Setting a garden is a
significant opportunity to appreciate what a grown man can do with a
shovel. I fetched water, bought seeds, located
and set seedling plants. After all those
years eating from a West Virginia kitchen garden, I knew how to make the most
of California’s fertile topsoil, but couldn’t do it with woman-power alone. It was a time to celebrate man muscle. Having made it through our first sierra
winter, we settled in to enjoy our first rolling harvest at its bountiful
best. After watching the sun rise, I
would draw in the dormer until eleven o’clock, then go out and find whatever
looked good to eat and was ripe for the picking. Bringing it in, I would peel and prep it for
pot or wok. The result was epic. I had never experienced such freshness, such
vibrancy of taste sensation.
Each evening brought another opportunity, often to
accompany meat scored from Lee Vining Market where, having certified to
provable income, I could say, “Put it on my account.” It was good to be financially viable again, now
states away from engineering jobs that had paid so reliably. After dinner, Jeffrey and I would climb the
stairs to the drawing dormer, and scratch away at our single drafting
table. I drew on the front; he drew on
the back. We each announced intent to
erase, so the other could lift pen or pencil before the board commenced shuddering. With a shared sense of humor, we managed.
I had not anticipated continuing to draw after departing
the architect, but several of his clients, having liked my inventive approach,
followed me to Lee Vining, and I was in business. I charged only a bit less for plans than area
architects since I had to hire a local Registered
Professional Engineer at my expense to provide a stamp whenever required by law. Jeffrey was great at doing engineering calcs,
but wasn’t certified to sign them. Any residential span over 25 feet needed a PE signature and stamp,
as did any commercial building. Jeffrey’s
calcs were good as gold given his aerospace engineering background, familiarity
with local codes, and experience interpreting the
Unified Building Code (UBC) that covered anything we might dare to undertake. But he couldn’t sign,
and he had no stamp. I could and did do structural calcs, but found
little creative joy in them. Jeffrey was
more consistently accurate.
Bear Engineering—really a black-bearded bear of a man who
had a magnificent and friendly Black Labrador named “Bear” and an engineering stamp that read “State of California
Registered Professional Engineer “—was just what we needed. We hired him; we hired his certification.
Whenever our designs exceeded 25’ free span, or waxed a bit too unusual,
Bear (the man) would verify all calculations and impress his big round stamp onto the drawing set. He earned a fee; we were verified as
competent—if not registered. Liabilities were covered all around. Clients could afford buildings and residences
without the steep fees of a Registered Architect
doing the whole gamut of the work, much of it essentially beneath his spectacular
pay grade. We got to pet the dog for
free.
Much of what an architect would have provided was of
course not included. Clients had to
choose their own fixtures, interior materials, finishes, and sources. With clients who were mostly Licensed Building Contractors,
we did only what was needed to get the building built. We served a need. In an area destined to be ever a frontier, we
made construction almost affordable. I
would specify carpet; client would specify type, brand, source, and estimated
cost. I would position a toilet; client
would indicate brand, color, etc. We
didn’t offer scale models, architectural renderings, luxury offices, or wining
and dining of clients. We had no
liability insurance, whether due to ignorance or poverty, it was a tossup. We could never have afforded it given the modest
level of our fees. We must have done a
credible job since we were never sued. At that point in my career, I didn’t know
about liability insurance. I suppose we
were what lawyers call “judgment proof.” We had nothing but each other and love. Why bother to sue
us? Its effect would be only punitive, netting nothing to the aggrieved.
We called ourselves “High Country Drafting.” If we had advertised “Engineering” we would
have been shut down before week’s end. We
could have named ourselves “High Country Design.” That would have been legal,
but we didn’t want to have to go to court and defend the name, just because people
couldn’t agree what “design” means. As
long as we advertised only “Drafting,” we were perfectly legitimate.
What we did wasn’t as important as what we advertised. Hmmm… in-ter-est-ing.
After we satisfied several contracts,
and saw them translated into viable structures, we could finally afford to rent
an office. We moved into town, into the
building now occupied by the Mono Lake Committee, the guardian of all things
Mono Lake. We fixed it up so spiffily,
that it was fun every morning to come to the office and open the front door. We paneled one wall with Peg-Board, and effected
a three-dimensional jig-sawed mural, whereupon mountains rose to the heights
and snowflakes made of mini-marshmallows fell (glued) onto a clear blue sky. It was pure whimsy. Then we hung all our drawing implements onto
the peg-board, close to hand, ready for use.
Clients loved the display as much as we did, chuckling at the blatant
creative play it portrayed. Kurt came to
work with us after he finished his kindergarten mornings. His favorite spot for his afternoon nap was
on the floor under my drafting table, snuggled into his best buddy blanket.
We began designing some interesting houses for Lee
Vining, June Lake, and Mammoth Lakes, along with the occasional commercial
structure. We even completed a passive
solar shopping center for a Carson City contractor. Bear played a strong hand on that one, having
acquired a Nevada certification. As soon as I departed the twitchy fisted architect,
I had more work than I could handle. We eventually
had to reassign Jeffrey from his job at the Building Department to work beside
me at High Country Drafting.
Soon we bought two professional drawing tables equipped
with V-Tech Drawing Machines and Bruning electric erasers. We bit the bullet and invested in a Blue-Ray
Blueprint machine and set about providing our own Blueline copies to clients
ready to apply for a permit or to break ground,
for which we could bill handsomely. I
could never shake the feeling of having just way too much happiness. I had learned from my Dad that work ought to be
play. Any task that Daddy despised, he redefined. He turned boring
into fun, and any way a job could be structured to achieve that goal was worth
any amount of up-front creative sweat effort.
“Most things aren’t impossible,” he insisted, “only lacking imagination,
an ingredient which is always in generous supply.”
It was an exciting time to be knocking about in the
building design business. The magazine “Architectural
Design” featured a now-famous article on double-envelope passive solar design
just as we really got rolling. The
concept coupled the house interior with the earth’s stable 55 degree core
temperature, hung lots of south-facing glass, provided serious insulation, and
allowed natural convection to pump air throughout the construct. Given that formula, any added energy must
work against the 55 degrees, not so much against the below-zero-degrees blowing
around outside. We signed up a local
pastor, Roger Landon, to provide him and his wife Cindy with a double-envelope
solar house plan, to be stick built from scratch. The residence stands even now in June Lake
Meadows, outside look blending with the local flavor of things. The first winter, the entire four bedroom
home made it through to spring on less than a single cord of firewood. We stuck slavishly to the construction
described in the magazine. It worked! For several years, designers of many stripes
skirmished pro vs con about the relative merits of double-envelope. Many people claimed it couldn’t work. Others insisted it was the livin’end—the final
best solution. But it cost more than
ordinary construction and never really caught on. I just smile.
I know it works, but in that initial iteration, it wasn’t conducive to
mass production. If I could ever build a
custom home for myself, there is only one approach I would take: Double-envelope
passive solar!
One idea that I played with but never brought to
completion was a double-envelope tiny house that would be mass produced to
replace the trailer houses we all love to hate.
I still have my preliminary drawings stored in Kurt’s basement
studio. I called it “Sun Spot.” Several years after I had to bury it in
storage, I heard that a similar tiny house had been introduced in Denmark as government
subsidized mass manufactured housing. I
hope that in some parallel universe I will get to tinker with that concept yet again.
Eventually a local Mammoth Lakes developer, Reef Siler,
decided to try High Country Drafting on a short string of projects. Jeffrey did one, a good-looking straight-forward
cabin design that proved to be easy to build and was super cost-effective. I did another featuring a corner faceted facade
(before New York’s Trump Tower was even dreamed of) that won a local newspaper’s
“Building Design of the Year Award.” Mr.
Siler set Jeffrey to work on more of his profit intensive multiple construction
designs. I, he set to work designing his
own personal dream home in the fashionable heart of Mammoth Lakes Village. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
He went nuts on his list of requirements. He had to have five bedrooms, a massive
living area to display his taxidermified marlin, an underground garage that
would accommodate work and family vehicles plus an RV pulling boat and trailer. The whole residence was to have a
glass-walled elevator from the bottom level garage to the top level widow’s-walk. The building lot he selected required a
massive engineered retaining wall that stratosphered the cost. I don’t know what he paid before he got his
occupancy permit, but it must have been a whale of a number. I was glad our invoice had already been
honored for a job well done. Bear, too,
had been to the bank with his High Country Drafting paycheck and returned
smiling. I heard, years later, that Reef
Siler had filed for Federal Bankruptcy protection. I hope it wasn’t the monster house that did
him in. It’s pretty, sitting there with
all that south-facing glass, and the glazed elevator screaming “Money!” I even specified a bronze eagle poised for a landing
on the dramatic apex of the structure, but don’t remember if he ever carried
out that bit of whimsy.
Once at a local gathering, a Mammoth
Lakes architect came barreling up to Jeffrey, grabbing his hand and
pumping it. “I’m so glad to meet you,”
he growled, lowering the register of his voice to signal a man to man encounter. “I was highly impressed by that faceted
facade you did for Siler. You know—the
one that won the “Design of the Year Award.”
I smiled, pressed closer, and waited for Jeffrey to give
me my share of the glory.
“Why thank you,” he acknowledged, preening his pleasure. “I’m so glad you liked it.”
As the guy walked away, something inside me died. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Jeffrey why he
took credit for my concept. Weeks later,
on a quiet Sunday afternoon, I dug out my pastels and began sketching
feelings. By evening, I had portrayed a
severed scrotum, painstakingly detailed with blood vessels, cilia, and
gathering contusions, nailed to a wall and dripping several varieties of effluvium,
all in living color. I named it “Balls
to the Wall” and stored it in the bottom drawer of the flat file. I don’t know what ever happened to it.
We rattled around in Mono County, completing a surprising
number of projects for several years, until interest rates went up and most everybody
had to cancel construction contracts. That brought building to a stop. There was nothing for it but to go south to
LA and get engineering jobs. Jeffrey
went first. Since he had been away for
several years and was concerned that he must surely be out of touch, he decided
to seek only a technician position. It
paid poorly, and he wasn’t able to cover our expenses, so I had to sell the lovely
Lee Vining house we had bought and join him trekking the LA head-hunter circuit. When I went job-hunting, I took stock of all
I had learned and the executive experience I had gained as co-owner, designer,
and project manager for High Country Drafting.
I applied for a position as senior engineer/project manager and got to
choose between two competing offers. Even
though I didn’t rub it in, the chain of events was a killer for Jeffrey. He never got over that final outcome. He deserved much, much more. Later as an entrepreneur with his own
building design outfit based in Washington State, he more than made up for that
one miss-step.
I tried to tell this story to a new friend who had graduated
from Harvard’s School of Architectural Engineering,
but she seems to be only an arm’s length friend. She didn’t appear to understand how it was
possible to do what we did and not be padded-cell certified. It was a different world back then—forty
years ago. I’m deeply thankful I had the
chance to give it a go, though it’s hard to translate it into present day
understandings of what’s possible—and legal.
One of the dearest people I met in Lee Vining was an old
accountant who had a near-death experience.
Having been dead, experienced an afterlife, and then suddenly awakened
to a living body, he wanted only to help people who really needed and deserved what
he could do for them. After interest
rates went up, and all our business income evaporated, we were facing a
frightening turn in our road. He analyzed
our financial position, sorted out our taxes, and helped us stay afloat for
several months until our LA jobs could save us.
He wanted no pay—just a bottle of Jim Beam and the satisfaction of helping
a couple of “poets” get over a rough spot.
I don’t know why he called us that—something to do with our being too
idealistic maybe. It’s possible he was
really an angel, certified by a seraphed Michael. I’m amazed that he thought we were worth the saving,
since we weren’t credentialed to do anything certificated at all.
Even so, it’s crazy-wonderful how much fun you can have just doing it
anyway.
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