I built this walkway last fall using Pennsylvania bluestone. In this image you can see both the true and full-color bluestone. The path is 42″ across and laid dry. There’s a small set of steps in the middle; the very straight line at the bottom of the image is the back edge of the top step. The steps are Tennessee sandstone, but they fit the color palette well. The path is drystone, with no mortar or concrete at all. It leads to the main entrance of a private residence.
I just added a new portfolio page about the recently completed dentist wall and bench. The image above links to the page. On the page itself, the same image links to a monster panorama.
On Wednesday I built the riser for the first step, seen here. It was a warm enough day, but only ten percent of my stone was visible; the rest still covered by snow. These steps are structural, meaning they’re stone all the way through; there’s no block or concrete, except for the slab underneath it all. They will extend almost all the way to the cut bank. These steps and attached columns are mortared. The adjacent retaining walls will be drystone.
I spent Thursday in the shop, seen below, fabricating these tread stones for the bottom step. As with the Eight Leaves project I made paper, then roofing felt templates. The paper templates for this step are taped to the wall behind the saw. The roofing felt templates are piled on the table. This time I used my seven inch grinder instead of the five inch. These radii are more gentle on these steps and the bigger blade made it easier to get through cleanly. The downside is that the bigger grinder kicks like a mule when the blade catches.
from the Chapel Hill News
16 December 2009
BY DAVE HART, Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL - When Grandpa Tony went out for his walks, which he did nearly every day until he was into his mid-90s, he always made sure he was well provisioned.
He kept cookies in his right pocket for the neighborhood’s children and dog treats dogs in his left pocket for its dogs. For everyone he had a smile, a wave and a warm conversation.
“He lived here for 18 years and he walked miles every day,” said Virginia Saam, one of Antonio Marimpietri’s neighbors in the Ironwoods subdivison off Seawell School Road. “He talked to everybody. He knew all the kids. He knew all the dogs. Everybody knew Grandpa Tony.”
And when Marimpietri died last July, a month after his 98th birthday, everybody felt the loss. As word of his passing spread, in person and through the Ironwoods blog, the sentiment quickly grew that the neighborhood should commemorate his life and vibrant presence in some way.
“There’s a corner in the neighborhood where the road splits, and Tony would always sit on his walker at that corner and wave and talk to everyone who passed by,” Saam said. “It sort of became Tony’s corner. It occurred to me that maybe we could do something special for him there. That got such a response! Everybody wanted to contribute.”
Another neighbor, Deb Vacca, suggested that it would be a fitting tribute to remember Grandpa Tony with a bench at his corner, a resting place where neighbors could stop and visit with one another just as he always had.
“We settled on the idea of a stone bench, and then we did a Google search,” said neighbor Matthew Feldt. “We found a stonemason based in Asheville. He turned out to be exactly what we were looking for — somebody who is eco-centric, detail oriented, somebody who would really care about the project. And he did; he came to care about Tony.”
Marc Archambault makes exquisite natural stone walls, patios, walkways and other projects, using “dry,” or mortar-free techniques. He does most of his work in and around Asheville, but “for the right project,” he says, he’ll go just about anywhere. Grandpa Tony’s bench was a right project.
Archambault cut the 600-pound bench slab from a 3,000-pound block of Tennessee sandstone. He chiseled the support pedestals from smaller — though still substantial — blocks of stone, and on Oct. 30 he brought the whole thing down from the mountains in a pickup truck. With Feldt’s help, he unloaded the slab, prepared and leveled the site and constructed the bench. On a separate block he affixed a plaque reading, “For our friend, Grandpa Tony Marimpietri.” He covered the bench and block with a tarp so the epoxy holding the plaque in place could dry for 24 hours.
The next day was Halloween, when the neighborhood every year holds a potluck part. On an impulse, Ironwoods resident Ginny Thompson sent an e-mail out proposing to unveil the bench before the potluck.
“I sent out this note and went and bought a couple bottles of wine,” Thompson said. “I only gave everybody about two hours’ notice, so I didn’t expect much turnout. I figured, worst case scenario, I’d have a glass of wine with a neighbor.”
She should have bought more wine. Despite the short notice, more than 20 residents showed up, along, of course, with lots of kids and dogs.
Vince Norako, a good friend of Grandpa Tony’s, offered an eloquent toast, and Marimpietri’s son Tony, who lives with his family in Ironwoods, pulled the tarp off the bench.
“It meant a lot,” Tony Marimpietri said. “The neighborhood has been amazing.”
His father, he said, grew up in New York and worked in the restaurant business — “He said that during the Depression if you worked in a restaurant, at least you could eat,” he said.
Marimpietri the elder opened two restaurants of his own in New Jersey and eventually moved into the wine business, becoming a sommelier. He moved to Ironwoods in 1991 and immediately began to make friends.
“Dad was very gregarious, and people responded to him because he was authentic, because he was legitimately interested in them and their lives,” Tony Marimpietri said. “He always stopped to talk, and people were always visiting him at his home. They would take him to the store or to his favorite restaurant, Italian Pizzeria III. As he was going through the dying process, so many people went to Hospice to visit with him and say goodbye. The people at Hospice told me they’d never seen anything like it.
“Everyone was very, very supportive. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a village to care for the elderly, too.”
I’ve just added a page about the Eight Leaves, Nine Stories patio pictured above. Click the image to explore the creation of the patio.
This looks more like a crime scene than job site. I set up lights to work later on Monday, talking advantage of the lovely weather. Today’s nasty rain and tomorrow’s threat of wind gusts up 55 mph makes me glad I did.
I just picked up my first T-shirts. They are white Gildan brand with this design on the chest. I have a few extra so if you are interested in acquiring one, send me a note and please include your size. Gildan brand tend to run large. I’m going to sell them for 15USD, shipping included to the continental United States. Shipping elsewhere will cost more. We can swap shirts too, if you’ve got something cool. Drop me a line at marc (at) hammerheadstoneworks (dot) com
