To build a home
My wife of 67 years grew up with two sisters and three brothers in a two-bedroom house. Zee shared a bedroom with her three brothers for most of her younger years. She always wanted a bigger home where our soon-to-be four children, Katy, Lilly, John, and Greg, could spend their nights. But that was not to be, as the first 8,000 acres I bought was strictly a pioneering ranch, as the previous owner kept all the improvements on his remaining 2,800 acres like his house, corrals, and water well. At the time, I looked past all those shortcomings as I had spent most of my line of credit buying some stocker steers and also took in some pasture cattle for my first year to be really committed to a life of being a cattleman. This meant there was only $11,000 in my budget to spend on a house, so with a small-time contractor, a hired man, and myself, we cobbled together a two-bedroom, one bath, 1,100 square foot house, and for 13 years, we made it work.
Our four kids were growing up fast when my account announced that with your ranch, which had now grown to 20,000 acres, you would have enough to build a house that would house all of Zee's dreams. So we started work on a 4,300 square foot home with three bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large kitchen with a breakfast nook, two fireplaces, and a parlor.
Tearing down the church at Camp Roberts, Feb 1974
In those years leading up to the start of construction, I spent a lot of time at junk auctions, kept my ear to the ground about estate sales, and let it be known that I was a willing buyer of second-hand materials. It wasn’t long until a friend of mine told me that the U.S. Army was selling all the buildings that made up the East Garrison of Camp Roberts near the town of San Miguel. There would be an army sergeant to tell me which buildings were still for sale and how much each would cost. After looking for several hours, I bought a Dayroom ($50), an Officer quarters ($200), and a Church ($250). Before buying the church, I visited with my lord Jesus, and I felt assured that his house was going to come down by me and be reused, but if nobody bought it, it would come down with a wrecking ball. It took me about three weeks to take a load of lumber on my flatbed trailer every day with all the nails pulled back to the ranch. This venture gave me about two-thirds of all the boards I needed, plus many doors, windows, and miscellaneous items to store for later use. There’s a fine line between being a hoarder and collecting things that one might use at a later date.
My next find was hearing that a demolition contractor was taking down the tank farm on Tank Farm Road in San Luis Obispo. It was being dismantled, and there were hundreds and hundreds of 8”x8” posts that the contractor had run through a planner to remove the oil. These posts had been supporting the roof over three oil ponds. The crude oil was pumped from oil wells west of Bakersfield, CA, then transported to San Luis Obispo, then to Avila Beach, where it was loaded onto Oil Tankers for a trip to a refinery in Los Angeles. The contractor was selling all the posts I would need for a quarter at the cost of a new one, and this is when I started using the words “patina look” for all the various things I collected at auctions and word of mouth.
Collecting tiles from the old Santa Maria High School, 1974
What happened next was a carpenter friend of mine who was sipping a cup of coffee at our local coffee shop on a Monday. He was telling me that the Santa Maria High School didn’t pass earthquake standards and was presently being demolished. Our house had most of the roof built, but I had not bought any tiles yet. Our house is a Spanish-style home, and we needed the specific style of tiles. Over the years, I had driven by the high school several times and remembered how beautiful the multi-colored tile roof was, and the tiles had that patina look. The high school was built shortly after World War I ended in 1918.
I had a full day of jobs that Monday, but I was for sure going to see whoever was in charge of demolition on Tuesday. I arrived about 9:00 am in the morning and asked the first worker I saw if he knew where his boss was. He replied he’s right over there. I walked over to the boss, gave him my name, and asked if the roof tiles were for sale. He thought for a moment, then said, “How many are you looking for?” I said, “ I need 22,000. I will give you 10 cents for each unbroken tile, and I will take them down with my crew.” He thought for a few minutes, then he said, “Sold, but you have to have them all out of here by next Monday, as that’s when the wrecking ball is coming.” I paid $2,200 for all our roof tiles.
I had to have a quick way to get the tiles onto the pallets. The roof edge was about 12 feet high. I had an idea of what I was looking for. So, to the local scrap yard I went. It was only a couple of miles to the yard, and lucky me, it only took a few minutes of looking to see just what I needed. There were two 10-foot-long, 12-inch-wide by 4-inch-deep sheet metal troughs that I brazed together to make a nice 20-foot-long chute. We could use this to slide the tiles into a big tractor tire stuffed with burlap bags to absorb the shock. My workforce consisted of my four children: Greg (10), John (12), Lilly (14), Katy (16), Zee, and three kids that lived on a ranch we owned in San Luis Obispo. I had to start on Wednesday and have a tile sliding down the chute every 7 to 8 seconds in order to get the roof off in time. Lunch each day was time for a quick Taco at Taco Bell across the street from the high school. I also had a man and his forklift to move the pallets.
One day, I had a little time to wander around the school and there was a beautiful trophy cabinet that had eight glass doors and was 20 feet long. I asked if the cabinet was going to be destroyed also and the answer was yes. Well, could I have it? The boss said yes. My imagination then turned to windows, doors, and miscellaneous. Wait a minute Jack, you don’t have time to collect all this booty that was going to fall victim to the wrecking ball. You’ve got tile up on that roof that has to be gone by Monday. Friday, we were all busy hauling and sliding tiles when the owner of the demolition company walked up to me and said, “What are all those kids doing up on that roof?” Well, I said you can see them having the time of their life and the satisfaction of being able to say I helped build our house. I said to the demolition contractor, “Why don’t you just say to yourself, I was never here, and look how gentle the roof slope is.” He said no more and just walked off, not to be seen again until Monday, when I had two flat-bed 18-wheel trucks that were being loaded for a trip hauling my tile to our V6 Ranch.
Zee on the patio at the house warming party, 1975
Now it was time to move over to Camp San Luis, which was built as a World War 2 army base. Part of it was being torn down, and part of the ground was going to then have a men’s prison built on it. I arrived on the site, and there were perhaps 10 prisoners carrying out part and parcel of what must have been a laundry room, and were unscrewing all the gate valves that varied in size from half an inch to 3 inches. The prison guard said, “Take as many of these old valves as you want.” I loaded my pickup with as many valves as my truck could hold, then headed to our ranch. Free was a good price, so I went back and got a second load, thanked the guard and the prisoners, and all these years later, I still find a use for one of my last remaining valves. For our outside patios, I wanted the real Mexican 12”x 12” tiles, so Jim, our architect, his wife, Zee, and I flew down to Mexico City to get the real thing. While also doing some vacationing and looking for just the right tile, with no luck. The salesman said to me, “Go back to Tijuana.” Sure enough, there we found just what we were looking for. So home to the V6 we went to get a flatbed trailer, and my hired man with his pickup and trailer, who also spoke Spanish, it didn’t take long to buy what I needed. It was a lot of driving, but I had what I wanted.
I had two more treasures to uncover, and one was a The Hunter Store in Parkfield that I had recently bought. It used to sit where the Parkfield Cafe is now. The store had been crushed a few years earlier by a giant Valley Oak tree. I was going to cut up the tree for firewood, and as I got more of the old tree cut into pieces, there was a board of the store that I could touch. I had plans to burn what remained after I got all the firewood out, but for some reason, I took out my Leatherman pocket knife, cut through the wallpaper, and through some old newspaper dated 1899 to what turned out to be a high-quality redwood board. I finished getting all the debris off the old Hunter Store, and I was amazed at how many boards were reusable for our hallway and our kitchen area.
Rock work in the living room, 1974
The second treasure was maple flooring for the kitchen. I got wind of another building that was being demolished in Paso Robles. It was the old U.S.O. building, where the present day police station. Sits. It had a great big maple wood dance floor. Now I had a new boss to see. I asked if I could take up the dance floor, as I could sure use the wood. Again, a few thoughtful moments went by and he said yes. What he wanted was the many 2x12-inch floor joists that supported the dance floor. The next day, my hired man, two day workers and I with crow bars in hand pulled up the floor. After we had several boards removed, there was a waist-high crawl space that was just right to stand on, and with three of us prying up from the floor joist, I was amazed at how each of the 1” thick Maple boards popped free. It took only that day to have all the flooring ready to be loaded for a trip to the ranch.
Wait a minute Jack, you thought you were done collecting? Well, there was one more thing left. I wanted a native rock wall around our fireplace, and we have a creek full of beautiful rocks, but few would meet the requirements of our rock mason. Once I could see what he wanted (no more than 4inches thick and reasonably flat on one side), it would take two weeks looking and gathering to have enough rocks for him to get started.
Well, almost two years later, our very beautiful and comfortable house was finished in the Summer of 1975. Even with a lot of sweat equity from my family and my foreman, my budget of one hundred thousand dollars got slightly mangled, but it was worth it. After 50 years, our house is still warm and comfortable with a nice patina look.
See Ya,
Jack
Housewarming Party, October 1975
