
Photo by Lloyd Kahn
This is a shack that I built on a remote beach about 5 years ago. (It’s such a long hike that I’ve never seen anyone at this spot.) I used hammer and nails. I kept a tarp stashed behind some bushes on the bank that I’d stretch over the top. Cook a pigeon or chicken on a fire, foil-wrapped potato and onions in coals. Sit around dying embers and watch stars. Flask of brandy. Sleep with waves hitting beach 50 feet away.
It blew down last year, and I’ll probably rebuild it later this year.
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This is an incredible resource. Richard Harris, English architect, former director of the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex, and longtime friend, sent this link to early shepherd’s caravans. This led me to explore some of the other links at this incredible website.
[Inadequately translated from French by Google Translate. Got a better one from “Roulotte No 7” here?]
This shepherd’s cabin trailer is preserved at the National Sheepfold of Rambouillet near Paris, where it was presented to the public at an exhibition in 2010. It consists of a small house with two gutter and two gears joined boards under a gable roof, house that sits on two parallel rails extending to the front of the machine in the form of two arms between which articulates a metal wheel on an axle.
Two iron hooks attached on top of the two arms were to be used to tow the vehicle. Another fixed axle with two wheels in iron, is located under the rear part of the cabin, freeing enough room in front to accommodate an entrance closed by a door hinged on the left against the forearm. This gate is formed of contiguous vertical boards fixed on two large horizontal cross. The roof seems to be covered with waterproof canvas.
On the wall of the front sprocket is fixed a sort of open storage box on the front. one notes the presence of the nearest spar of the observer, two rings, one on the front and one on the back: without hold they used to tie the dogs.

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I’m doing my first ever photo exhibit, opening this Saturday at the Bolinas Museum. It’s part of a 2-month-long exhibit on the subject of makeshift architecture, and features artists Jay Nelson, Whiting Tennis, and Eirik Johnson, along with my photos of driftwood beach shacks along the northern California coast.
Rick Gordon has processed and printed 24 14″×18″ prints and printed them here on our new Epson Stylus Pro 4900 inkjet printer. They look pretty darn good! The ingenuity of anonymous beachcomber artists.
The opening is this Saturday, April 2nd. At 2 PM, I’ll talk a bit about my background and our 46 years of publishing books on building and fitness; at 3 PM, there’s a reception.
Bolinas Museum
48 Wharf Road
Bolinas, California 94924
www.bolinasmuseum.org
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I told my sister Sharon that when she retired from teaching I would build her a house here on our small farm in the foothills of the Sierras. The design went through many rough drafts before we arrived at one that met all our criteria.
The house had to be beautiful, a home that would be a joy to live in. It needed to be small, to fit her budget and to comply with our county building ordinance concerning secondary residences: no more than 1200 square feet. The design of the house had to compliment the main house, a two-story, farm-style dwelling. And the new house had to minimize any deleterious affects upon the environment, both in the building and in its continued use.
–Michael Easterling
This is Sneak Preview #16 from our forthcoming book, Small Homes, to be published in spring, 2017.
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Brad Lancaster lives in a cottage (converted garage) on a piece of land in Tucson, Arizona. He harvests rainwater and has a grid-tied photovoltaic system. The house and grounds are carefully designed and built to maximize natural temperature regulation and to conserve water for growing. We’re doing four pages on this setup.
The public right-of-way adjoining property in 2015. All vegetation is irrigated solely by passively harvested rainfall and street runoff. All perennial plantings selected for their food, medicine, and wildlife habitat-producing characteristics.
–Brad Lancaster
This is Sneak Preview #15 from our forthcoming book, Small Homes, to be published in spring, 2017.
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