Putney House Under Construction

The unique house commissioned by the woman known as Travelin' Gal and designed by Faramond the Architect is well under way. The stone walls are complete, workmen are putting tiles on the roof, and the windows are going in. The view is of the back of the house, which faces Putney Bay, seen in the distance down Rigby Street.

The house progress hasn't gone un-noticed. The neighbors have been commenting on its unusual roof line, and one woman was heard to say, "I'd like to know why this house doesn't conform to the sidewalk like all the rest do in Peagarden - It is crooked!" The house is at the corner of Rigby and Joplin Streets (Lot 6), in the Peagarden Park neighborhood, the oldest in Putney: 

If you are lost, Peagarden Park is in this part of Putney:

If you are still lost, this is where Putney is located on New Island:

And this is where New Island is located on the planet:

New House in Putney

An adventurous soul know as Travelin' Gal has decided she just loves the old Peagarden Park neighborhood in Putney. She found a vacant lot there a few months ago and has recently appointed the mysterious New Island architect Alan Faramond to design her house. The lot, it turns out, is the very one with the story posted in April of this year. Faramond is hard to find, but New Islanders who know where to look hire him for his "build with nature" skills.

Faramond complied with these sketches.  Travelin' Gal is pleased and construction will start in a couple of weeks.

The house will be built of  hewn Wicklow limestone, that is brought in by barge from quarries near Silent Bay. The porch pillars will be branches and the base from a deceased fig tree that once grew in the rear of the lot. The carvings in the tree's trunk tell their own story!

Though the house faces Rigby Street on these plans, it will be tuned to face more westerly toward Joplin Street and the view of Aussie Slough and the harbor.

Travelin' Gal, originally from California, arrived on New Island in 2011.

 

Earth Home in the Wicklow Mountains

Wisconsin artist Soltaire the Assembler has begun construction of his new home in the Wicklow Mountains. He claimed five acres of land on the ridge named after a distant relative of his, and has selected the site below for his house.

The site has a stunning view of Otter Bay, Ignatz Island and the Eastern Coast.

The new studio-residence will be known as Thistledown Plot Atelier.

Mr. Soltaire has approved the concept and plan sketches, 

and construction will begin in the next week or so. He will also be constructing solar and wind -energy sculptures to provide heat and power.

Soltaire comments:

"Thistledown Plot looks dreamy...yummy...integral to Mother Earth...and "Bah" to conservatives who want to live in traditional houses.

They have their freedoms to live their lives happily under circumstances of their choosing...but must let others live out theirs in other happy ways.

New Island...I suspect...is established for that purpose."

                                                                                               -- Soltaire, The Assembler

This Crazy New Island Project

It began in 1992 when I made a painting of a woman dancing on a bluff, and then decided that this event was taking place on an island somewhere - a big island with a variety of landforms. I just had to explore this place so I made many more paintings and drawings of places on the island, including some of the towns and settlements.  Later I made up a map of the island, and then started writing about its history and culture.

In 2003 I self-published The New Island Relocation Guide, a 155-page book about the island and its cultural history. Now I am rewriting the book as a kind of adventure story that will also document the island, including all maps and illustrations, this time in color. I've already posted a few short segments, about a fellow named Alan Faramond who physically lives in the Midwest but lives in his imagination somewhere else.

 

A Vacant Lot in Putney - from the Putney Times



Many Putney Times readers have been asking about Peagarden Park since our last article. Times city reporter Melvin Kox took a walk around there and filed this report.

Vacant lots have stories

Have you ever walked through an old neighborhood and found a vacant lot amid elegant old, perhaps eccentric homes? A large lot with big trees in the back, and perhaps some forgotten cement work or an overgrown, weedy walkway leading to nowhere?

On the corner of Rigby and Joplin streets in Putney's Peagarden Neighborhood sits such a lot. When I walked by it the other day, I first discovered the old formal walk beginning at the street corner, proceeding up some cracked steps, then disappearing under scrub oaks. Then I heard voices and noticed about eight teenagers huddled back in the trees, having what seemed to be an intense conversation. Bees were buzzing everywhere, likely attracted to the flood of poppies and miandra blooming just now. Have you ever had miandra-blossom honey by the way? Uuuum!

I asked the lady waiting at the streetcar stop if she lived near here, and knew anything about the lot. "Well, I believe a Russian navy man named Valeri Polyakov once owned it, but he had to leave back around 1905, or 1906, one of those years. Now, I think someone has just bought it, but no one knows who...but just the other day my neighbor told me she noticed a woman walking around the property with who she thought might be Faramond the architect." Then the Seville - Library trolley showed up and she had to go.

This is the Peagarden park neighborhood.

The vacant lot above has a number 6 on it.

Putney Sees Major Improvements

It's not the same old Putney anymore!

The downtown area of Putney, especially the Peagarden Park district, has seen many improvements in the last year. A new light rail line was added to make it more convenient for commuters to get to the West Putney neighborhoods from Downtown Station. More trains have been added to decrease the maximum waiting time from 30 minutes to 15.

New streets and buildable lots have also been added in the Peagarden neighborhood bordered by Jones Street, Cecelia Avenue and the railway lines. We'll have stories about what the residents are doing here, in good time.

A bike road has also been built all around Putney Bay, complete with a  ferry ride available at the mouth of the bay. Commuters love it! Also, some interesting bicyles have been seen using this new path, particularly some belonging to the dedicated surfers who travel during the wet winter months to catch the big waves off Putney Head. Our roving reporter found this home-built specimen:

With thanks to a  creative, dedicated and very real surfer somewhere in the Sunset District of San Francisco!

Julia's Paradise

On the beach at Julia's on a foggy morning.

On the Great East Coast Path just south of Bailey Beach lies Julia's Paradise. As you walk the Path, you'll almost miss the small sign by the path to her retreat. Once you walk in you'll find a virtual Paradise of tiny cabins and treehouses with ocean views, open hot pools, an inside bathhouse with steam rooms and sauna, a cold swimming pool, organic gardens and a beautiful lodge and resaurant.

Julia's cuisine and her magic cookies are known all over the island!

Which brings Julia to mind. She is a free spirit much into healing: a nutritionist and therapist. She'll set you up with the right food, massage (many disciplines), an exercise program, and even talk-therapy if you're really in need of someone. She takes clients for 3-day and one-week (or longer) stays at her gorgeous retreat, which is clothing optional, as is the beach out front.  For a reduced fee you can work in her gardens or on other projects...she is always fixing up her place!

If you go, ask Julia for the two-hour Heavenly Hands massage, then take in the baths, a vigorous swim in the ocean, and a nap. Then check out Julia's open kitchen and sample a cookie or two, or a glass of local riesling before supper. Ummmmmm.

For reservations, contact: Julia at Julia's Paradise, Bailey Beach Post, New Island.
Your mail might take a week to arrive, so plan ahead!

Enjoy!

The Eastern Coast

This is rumored to be Bird Point, but the locals won't say for sure...

Much of New Island's eastern coast is uninhabited or very sparsely so. The entire coast is accessed by only two roads, the P17 and the M25. The rest of this 200-mile-long coast is accessible only by walking the Great East Coast Path.

Several Japanese fishing families settled the rocky northern coast in the early 1800s, and they continue their traditional way of life. Walkers are invited to stay at several inns and spas in the old villages. Further south, a few towns have grown to supply the smaller tribes and settlements. Subsistance-farming and resort tribes are the rule on the southern coast. Many New Islanders trek along this coast to vacation at these tribal spas for weeks at a time.  Further south are a few secretive settlements, such as Covenmoor, which welcome visitors only during special annual festvals. Inquire locally if you're uncertain! 

Ahhh, the beaches cannot be surpassed! The Path keeps to the firm ground just above the most beautiful, swimmable, sunnable sand spits you can imagine, so walking and light haulage is comfortable. The surf is gentler than on the blustery South-West coasts and is ideal fro body surfing. Camping is allowed on the beaches and headlands, and swimsuits are optional nearly everywhere except the Ignatz Municipal Beach and Plunge.

A few people are building homes on the claimable common lands along this coast, but the beaches will always remain accessible.

New Island Houses

Imagine living in a comfortable house built with local materials, (see pictures) that costs very little and can biodegrade!

Housebuilding has been a do-it-yourself tradition on New Island, and is taught as one of the Seven Basic Skills. Individuals usually purchase (claim) an available site, and then build or design their own house or retreat. Houses tend to be small (about 1500 sqaure feet or less) and are built with clay or adobe brick, cement-sand brick, wattle-and-daub (mud covering woven branches) or straw bales-and-stucco; with wood-frame roofs, trim, windows and doors. Imported steel is used to reinforce clay and cement-sand walls. Locally-made glass is used extensively including fiberglass for insulation. Plastics have been limited to plumbing pipe and wiring insulation.

Typical houses on New Island.
This is the settlement of Brandonbeach, on the isolated
southwest coast. It is on the Irian-Southwestern railway,
and the South-West Path, but no roads lead to it!

More typical houses.
This is the commons in Sapphire,
a tribe-settlement on the edge of the Sheffield Desert.
Art by Lee Mothes

Islanders enjoy building! They commonly camp out on their sites for a while to get the feel of how their house might best fit: Aesthetics, the slope, the views, sun-or-shade requirements, garden areas, neighbors and access are usually the biggest considerations. House-raising is often a community event, especially in tribes, where neighbors pitch in to build the foundation and framework, and then the owner usually finishes the details.

The Wave Dance Festival Starts Tonight!

We all went and hid after all the show-and-tell hoopla of last September! Now that the promotional dust has settled we can come out again and share what New Island is about....so we start with the Island's festivals.  

The new year always begins with the 

Wave Dance Festival 

 Practicing for the Wave Festival

New Islanders are gathering at the sacred Wave Dance sites this afternoon for the Wave Dance Festival. The highest tides of the season arrive at about 6 pm this evening, January 16, then return at 6:45 pm tomorrow evening, then 7:30 on Tuesday evening, before finally subsiding.

Three old stone platforms scattered at different beaches around the island are the stages for this festival. At the Wave Point site, on the island's eastern coast near Bella Shore, drummers have set up on the nearby bluff while people gather 'round the food and wine booths to tank up. As the tide comes in the dancing starts to old Gaelic tunes or to a wild African-Caribbean beat.

Wave dancers gather on the platform and move to the drums and the rhythm of the surf, losing themselves in the sensuality of nature's energy - and it's ALL energy! People get wet, but it's warm these nights in the Antipodes, it's midsummer here!

Here's the site of the Wave Point festival:

Enjoy!