A call from Djelloul. A request for a friend -- did we know of anyone in NYC that could house a couple of families, Moroccans, for a weekend. We knew of no one but ourselves, and as the family members numbered upwards of 8, (two babies), and as it was the custom in Algeria, as we experienced, to leave your home so that others could be more comfortable, we kind of leapt at the chance to go to New Hampshire, as Mary Jean, Rock's sister, insisted we should. We should go and visit cousin Tedd Benson and Christine and tour their factory and enjoy their beautiful home. And more than anything, reconnect with this man of dynamic vision and memorable stories, who we hadn't seen in a decade. We gave a call. There was a cheerful response -- if we wanted to take part in chores and maybe a bike ride . .
Friday afternoon on a beautiful summer weekend. The drive was scenic and snails-pace, but they waited up. And the home was breathtaking. A timberframe home he had made himself. He'd written the book. Several, actually. Still in print. But it was the spirit that filled the home that welcomed us, and especiallly the bounty of beauty and perfection in the gardens, rolling lawns, the pond reflecting the reeds and sky and the little fish suspended in it, the view of distant Vermont, Green Mountains, the utter silence, broken by a cricket chirp, a bird call, a hesitant wood-pecker. Paradise.
After a delicious sausage-omelet casserole breakfast, it's off to the day's adventures. Christine takes us to the Lily place, acres of blooming day lillies of every color and shape, and happy conversation with the owners. We pick out a plant to take home to Stacey, as looking for one to buy made the looking more fun. It was like meeting the cast of a play. Here's Liz Moldovay, Francis of Assisi, My side of the Mountain, Spacecoast Starburst, and two favorites below,
Elizabeth's Magic,
and Painter Poet.
And back to the house, where Tedd asks if we're up to some hiking. Family.
"I'll tell you when we get there."
The path upwards is overgrown, thorny, rocky. Even with a mending ankle, Tedd led us to the site in strides too long and swift for us to catch up easily.
The story began in the turn of the 70's, when we were all going back to the land. While he and Christine lived in a cabin with outdoor plumbing and a wood-burning stove, he and his brother Steve started B and B construction. They had nothing but their winning smiles to convince people of their skill, but it got off the ground, and even thrived. Though missing their Colorado home, they loved New Hampshire, exploring the woodlands. Steve, all excited, once brought Tedd back to an old graveyard at the top of a mountain. As they drank a beer, sitting on the stone wall, gazing at the view, Steve said what a great place it would be to be buried.
In 1974 there was a car accident. Tedd and his family and circle of friends found healing in the swift building of a casket, the digging and breaking through rock, the shared burden of the carried casket, the beautiful service by Rock's dad, and the soaring songs of a friend and all, up in that resting place on the mountain, overlooking the blue distant scene. Tedd would bike there often afterwards.
Now it calls to him to restore the place again. It's too overgrown for the townfolk to do their usual maintenance. It's a project he'll put his heart into. He has nothing else to do.
We head to town to pick up some sandwiches ("You pass the visitor test," he said, as we rub the scratches on our legs.) Time to tour the factory site. He's the head of Bensonworks, employing a hundred workers,-- builders, architects, engineers, even, now, a HR person. In 2008 he almost lost it all. 5 million dollars of contracts lost in a day. But he couldn't put his workers on the street. He couldn't do that. Though working in the red they grabbed any job they could profitable or not, just to keep cash flow going. Finally they're prosperous again. The place is efficient, homey, carpeted offices (all recycled materials), timber-framed (recycled from an old mill) with a vast workshop space with cranes and machinery. He shows us the sample of the walls they build, a foot thick, filled with cellulous -- recycled paper products -- what looked like inch-thick sheet rock on the interior side and an exterior layer of solid plywood, waterproofed and sealed. He shows us the window choices -- European, mostly, the beautiful doors, the siding options, roof options. Built efficiently in the factory, they're two weeks in the assembling on site. !!!
He describes it all to us. Upstairs, the sign I love the best is the one where the architects' offices meet the engineers' --(they always build a home virtually before it's built on site. The standard is absolute perfection. 1/8" off is inadmisable.) The sign speaks to the dreamer/designer in me. "Reality starts here."
This is Christine and Tedd's area, at the top, overseeing it all. His passion is a second company, Unity Homes.
Bensonworks conitnues with the multi-million dollar projects, the school gym (made from wood reclaimed from burned forests) the civic buildings, the mansions for ecology-minded wealthy.
Unity Homes is the company for all of us. He took us to the stretch of land by the highway now occupied by a (delicious) ice cream place and acres and acres of corn. His field of dreams. The plant will go here, another building there, and by the highway, hoping for a food co-op, with a cafeteria with food that the 100 + employees can enjoy.
Enjoy the video. He had help making it with a local guy. Ken Burns, who had Bensonworks build his studios in the town. They're good friends.
He'll have a major exhibit at a green-homes convention in DC in November, giving a couple of talks. We'll be there cheering.
Then it was back to their home. We took walks, the others worked. How to record the little moments? A hummingbird pausing midair to check me out, the white Persian-ish cat climbing up on my lap, conversing, the fox catching the carlight as we drive back from dinner, and the porcupine. And the gardens.
At dinner Tedd asked why in the world anyone would live in the city where the rents are so high. I did my schpiel of the paradise of Brooklyn, all along thinking of the silence and the green, and the good work going on here. Rock summed it all up when he said that Tedd had encircled himself with a community even more sympathetic, artistic, creative, purposeful than we had in Brooklyn-- in a place near Tanglewood, Dartmouth, museums and dance festivals. The only thing was, they needed a car to get to them all. They had two, one for each. Christine said her daughter, having lived in Brooklyn, moved up to the area, but only if she could get a place in town in walking distance to the stores.
But they aren't all that car-bound. Tedd and Christine went off on a 30 mile mountain bike trip Sunday morning. Tedd often bikes the mountainous country roads to work -- a 20 minute drive! 35 min. there, 45 min. coming home. Keeps him fit. I brought my bike, but one look at that dirt road to the top of the hill where their home was, which even our Subaru complained about, and I opted out.
Mary Baker Eddy told an artist, "You have to have beauty within you, to be able to create beauty around you." The tremendous beauty of soul, lovingkindness, wisdom, and vision within these remarkable people has bloomed in the lives of multitudes, and it's about to be multitudes more.
God bless and God speed.
