Taking The Leap

“Maybe we should just tear this off and go back to what we know.” That was the day’s opening line from my dad as we stood frustrated in a room littered with stone. It was the second day on a new job, and ambivalence filled the air. We were trying something different, and it wasn’t going well.

So much potential was in front of us - a new way to do stone masonry. We had been waiting for this very opportunity. The problem was finding someone who trusted us with this updated style, knowing we hadn’t done it before. We couldn’t demonstrate competency. There were no pictures to prove an outcome. Everyone was taking a risk.

I learned masonry from my dad, starting around the age of ten, although my contributions during those younger years were more companionship than useful labor. He had apprenticed with a seasoned mason years earlier who taught him all the traditional methods of laying stone. By the time I entered the scene, those techniques were well ingrained in my dad’s psyche. Then we got a book for Christmas that changed everything.

We were given The Art of Stone by Lew French. The cover alone blew our minds. The scale, composition, and fit of the rocks was unlike anything we had ever seen. This man was building fireplaces with a contrasting scale of stones, some larger than a person, others smaller than a quarter turned on its side. Most impressive was the way the stones all sat atop one another with no space between them. The concept alone was mystifying. What was holding these projects together?

Turns out it was mortar – the same stuff we used every day. Lew had figured out that when built correctly, the structural integrity of stonework isn’t dismissed by the lack of mortar filling joints between stone. Sure, you can find other stacked rock projects, but those are mostly outdoor walls of fieldstone. This was different, and nothing proved how radical his technique was more than his use of river rock.

Round, smooth stone does not naturally stack. It’s like trying to make a bunch of basketballs sit on top of each other. That is why that sticky mortar between the stone is so important. You need some leeway with fit, and a bonding agent that makes circular shapes stay in place. Unlike a dry-fitted fieldstone wall, river rock needs a little help. At least that is what we thought.

Living and working in Washington, river rock is fairly ubiquitous. The winding rivers being supplied from melted snowpack sift stone out of the ground. The flow of water acts like an organic tumbling machine, smoothing boulders to give them soft edges. When you picture the Northwest, you can almost feel the heat emanating from a river rock fireplace inside a cozy log cabin.

I should mention that river rock is definitely the most divisive stone. It seems that people either love it, or dismiss it altogether. But for many of our clients, it provides the feel they want. People sometimes assume that we only work with river rock, or prefer it over anything else. That isn’t the case. We love building with all types of stone, but we aren’t the ones choosing the materials. Our job is to create something personally attuned to our clients’ tastes. The truth is, it just gets requested more often than not.

Which brings me back to Lew. The way he put river rock together was something else. Seeing it stacked with precision, no visible mortar joints, and intentional composition was captivating. The question was, how did he do it? We didn’t know, but the idea got lodged in our brains. He had stretched our understanding of what could be done, and it became fuel for our creative engine. Only we didn’t immediately take the leap. Part of the problem was that I was in the thick of college. During that period my dad was a solo act, and he stuck to what he knew.

Reflecting on it, I think it’s always easier to take risks with a partner. Isn’t that true with most things in life? Stepping out on your own can be terrifying, but when you have someone else to take the first step with, the challenge becomes less intimidating. When I came back after college, we began working together again and sought out a client that would let us try something new.

A few months into our newly formed partnership called Miller Stoneworks, we found just the right couple. We explained our idea, and even showed them Lew’s book as a proof of concept. To seal the deal, we told them we wanted to make something so special that it would become the focal point of their home. We boldly sold them on having the most unique fireplace in the community.

The invigorating energy from their yes was immediately squashed on that disheartening first day. After laying out our tools, we faced the challenge of creating and implementing this new technique. Stone directly on top of stone, with mortar only filling behind, not between the rocks. We came face to face with the truth behind every expert in their field – they make it look so easy. Only it isn’t. You would think with so many years of experience it would come naturally, but that was far from the truth. We were dumbfounded. How on earth was this actually going to work?

On the second day, we asked that difficult question. Should we keep going forward, or retreat to what we knew? Nothing was going as planned, and we might have bitten off more than we could chew. If we were going to abort, now was the time. There is nothing more frustrating than tearing down what you have already built. We didn’t want to waste days creating something that looked awful, then chisel the whole thing off. Plus, it would be humiliating to go back to the homeowner, explaining that we couldn’t deliver on the promised masterpiece. Better to get it over with as fast as possible.

Thankfully, we didn’t let our frustration get the better of us. We had to keep going. We needed to know if we could figure it out. So we moved on from the idea of giving up.

At first, it was the most laborious thing we had ever built. Instead of grabbing a few prospects, we had to pick up twenty stones before finding one that would fit. Time came to a standstill, with each day producing what seemed to be inches of progress. But we slowly found our way.

The first lesson was understanding we couldn’t just think about the bottom fit. Each stone needed to produce a flat platform for what would go above them. There was no longer a mortar cushion making up for slanted or uneven rock choices. There were no shortcuts, and mistakes made taking any steps forward frustrating as all get out. We became like teenagers with constant mood swings. One moment we couldn’t believe how cool things looked. The next we thought it was all garbage.

I’ll now let you in on a secret I barely ever tell my clients - I always think it looks like crap for the first few days. At the start of every new project, I honestly believe I have lost all my talent. Like clockwork, when I come home my wife will ask how it’s going, and I launch a mini tirade about how terrible it looks. It doesn’t matter that my opinion always changes by the second week, I still can’t shake that feeling.

By the time my dad and I finished our first dry-stack river rock fireplace, we knew something had changed. We had a new vision for our work, and we knew that we could do it. No, it didn’t look anything like a Lew French fireplace, but that wasn’t the point. We never wanted to copy his work, we had simply been inspired, and felt there was untapped potential for our own designs. We wanted to push ourselves to be better. Reflecting on it now, I know this is the moment we started thinking about our work as art more than construction. It wasn’t just a job any longer, we wanted to build beautiful things.

Even though my dad retired a few years ago, I still consider everything I build as “ours.” Masonry was always the thing we did together, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. The design concepts and techniques used to build any new project were developed as a team. This might be my favorite thing about masonry, it will always be ours, not mine.

The memory of that second day, when we almost gave up, was potent after I finished my most recent fireplace. I stood back, looking up at the vast project, and immediately thought of my dad. In my head, I said to him, “all those years ago, could you ever imagine that we could build something like this?”

I think this is the first year where I can clearly see that I’ve gotten better at stonework. I am usually my own worst critic, dwelling on even the smallest choices I wish I could change. It’s hard to see incremental improvements when you live with yourself every day. Sensing that perhaps some kind of progress was made, I pulled up a photo of that first fireplace to see just how far we had come. What I saw gave me a lot of joy. Yes, there is considerable improvement; but I still love our first dry-stack fireplace. It might not be as remarkable, but the heart behind the work is the same.