There is quite an amazing "organic" house called "The Mushroom House" for sale in Whistler, BC. The artist who built it has been working on it for 30 years. It is now complete and because it was an art project it is for sale. There is no asking price, rather you are invited to look around and make an offer. Rumour has it that the minimum bid that will be given serious consideration is $5 million. Having virtually toured the house I believe it. Click on the link above and take the tour it is a magnificent home. Some of the links on the site will pop up Quicktime windows. Be certain to use your mouse on those windows to take a 360 degree tour of the room you are in.
Posted by The Dynamic Driveler at May 20, 2003 09:52 AMI am the person responsible for the basic concept of the mushroom house. Zube bought the lot for a paltry sum because it was "unbuildable".
It was solid granite with a 20 foot cliff sloping towards the back. I surmized that we could stand 2 foot logs in a circle around a massive pyramid of rocks which would contain the chimney. The circle of logs would be on top of the cliff at the front and at the bottom in the back. The beams would be 4x12 timbers bolted in pairs and set into notches in the logs.
I built a 1/4"-1' model of the structure. I think I have a photo around somewhere.
We had a bit of trouble getting the concept across to the authorities at the time, but we found an engineer who understood the concept and was willing to back us up. The plans were pretty rudimentary, schematic, would be the right description, I suppose.
Things were a bit looser in those times. I can't imagine being allowed to proceed with such a project now. "Well, we really have no clear idea what this is going to look like when it is completed, or how long it is going to take.....could we have a building permit anyway please?"
lol
We got most of the logs stood up on the solid rock, but the last one to complete the circle was on soft ground. We hired a backhoe to dig the soft soil away, and revealed a deep gully which went down another 8 or 10 feet. We didn't have a log long enough to reach from the rock at the bottom of the gully to the roof, so we went looking for a big rock.
Zube had access to a big crane, and we gound our rock and by pulling it up next to the crane, we were able to just pich it up and load it into a tandem dump truck. We backed it up to the hole we had dug and the driver raised the box. The rock was hung up on the sides of the box and the front wheels of the dumptruck came off the ground.
Just before the dumptruck toppled backwards into the hole, the rock let go and wedged itself into the v of the rock which shaped the gully. It fit perfectly,and there was a nice flat space on the top right where the last column would rest. The big rock eventually became the exterior wall of the sauna, and the gully became the pool, which is the "floor" of the sauna.
Once the basic frame was completed, I moved on to other things, and Zube spent the next 30 years or so completing this unique work of art on the armature I helped him build.
Carlos mentioned Gaudi. I believe it was Zube who introduced me to the works of that great architect. Frank Lloyd Wright has always been my inspiration, but since working with "The Zube", I seem to find the odd organic element creeping into my work.
Posted by: Peter Legere on June 10, 2003 01:22 PM
What a fascinating story - thanks for coming by and telling it to us.
Posted by: The Dynamic Driveler on June 10, 2003 03:50 PMPeter, what an interesting bit of information! May I say that I would love to own this place, living in such an organic structure must just be amazing...so much better than prefab boxes. Now, if I can just figure out how to raise that much money...
Posted by: Winifred on December 9, 2003 03:06 PM