Mountain Modern From Scratch

Raymond Richard Neutra

Can you imagine two people who felled and

milled their own trees and by themselves with

the aid of heavy equipment built a series of

sophisticated modern dwellings in a forest one

hourʼs drive from the nearest paved road?

Meet Charles and Vanna Rae Bello!

I met Charles half a century ago, when he was

an apprentice in the studio/residence of my

father Richard Neutra. He was living in what

used to be my room with another apprentice

and I was home from college for the summer.

We liked to go up to Griffith park and talk

philosophy over bread, wine and cheese

Charlie had built several houses for his father

even before he got his degree in architecture

and engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

He had become disenchanted with his work

with some San Francisco business oriented

architects and chose to come and work with my

Dad and then later with Henry Hill and

landscape architects.........(name?)

in Berkeley. He admired the work of

Italian Engineer/Architect Pier Luigi

Nervi, and on a furlough from the

Army in North Africa had actually

dropped in on the great man who

encouraged him to pursue his

dream of applying Nerviʼs ferro

concrete engineering concepts to

wood. After building spec houses in

Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and New

Zealand, Charles and his wife

Vanna Rae purchased 400 acres of

redwoods in the mountains near the

end of the Skunk Railroad that runs

between Ft Bragg and Willets

California. That was in the early

1960ʼs. They home- schooled their

two sons Mike and Mark, grew and canned their own food, raised Christmas trees and

proceeded to build dwellings on their property for their own use and for vacation rentals.

They used the cash to purchase food they could not raise and building materials, often

scrounging for surplus glass panes, electrical and plumbing supplies for use at a later

date. Some of the structures in the late 1960ʼs

involved the help of their boys, but by the

1990ʼs the innovative structures were built

alone by Charles and Vanna Rae. Thus they

exemplify engineering ingenuity not only in the

structures themselves but in the application of

specially designed tools and processes that

made it possible for two people to fell trees,

mill and plane them and then construct

parabolic roofing systems, put large panes of

glass in place and complete all the processes

of construction. Vanna Rae fell ill in 2008 and

is in a nursing home near one of her sons, so

Charles who is seventy eight, continues alone

on the ranch with plans for his non profit

foundation to save his forest and plans for a

gallery for his sculptures which he plans to

build by himself. While he remembered doing

the unusually detailed and specified working

drawings that were characteristic of the Neutra

office, the only documentation that Charles

needed for this gallery was on the kitchen wall

next to his refrigerator.

The rest of the complicated structure

and the tools and procedures for

building it alone are in his head. Itʼs

foundation is poured, its floor is

framed and the glue laminated

beams he has made in his studio are

being transported to the site.

One can see some of the sculptures and the

beams stacked ready for use in his studio.

Charles has learned a solo technique for lifting heavy

logs onto the carriage for milling and several approaches

to slicing the logs into planks, one of which involved

attaching a rotary blade to the back wheel of a 1960

Ford Galaxy whose speed in reverse provides just the

right energy for milling large logs.

On a recent visit we stayed in the most

spectacular of the parabolic structures,

which, Charles calls The Glass House.

Its shape grew out of a commitment to

an inspiring upward view to a redwood

ridge across a meadow and solar

heating in the mountain chilled winters

and solar protection in the fragrant

warm summers.

Here Charlie and my wife Peggy look

out beyond a glass and driftwood table

of his own manufacture over the deck

with its shallow reflection pool and

across the meadow to the ridge of

redwoods beyond.

The ample overhang is shading the interior in summer but

the winter garden and photo voltaic panels gratefully

receive the solar energy they require.

The back side

of the house

where the bed

is located is

opens to the

up sloping hill

side where the tame herd of deer can be

seen grazing in the early morning light.

A curved masonry wall, with a round

hole that provides a view from the

kitchen separates the living room with

its view ( see below) from the

bedroom and bathroom behind

The parabolic layers of redwood and insulation are

tensioned in a way the makes beams unnecessary and

the roof rests lightly on the rhythmically placed poles

and sturdy masonry.

Deer pass by on the meadow.

The reflection pool seen through the

unobtrusively placed glass reflects the passing

clouds and cast ever-changing reflections on the

ceiling.

For neighbors in the forest, Charles

has built a hyperparaboloid

meditation space.

The poles and slats, that he milled

and cut are dimensioned in ways to

produce the desired curvatures.

These are then covered with a

waterproof plastic roofing.

In the mid 1960ʼs they built a

trapezoidal structure whose walls

were formed of individual modules

attached to the flooring and rotated

module by module from each side

to be bolted to the rafters. The

frame of the whole house was

erected by two people in the course

of a day. This was where they

raised their children

The bedrooms were in a loft above, which looked down on

the living room as seen in this picture. The diagonal window

frames are structural and provide the needed bracing.

Another

structure

on the

property

looks out

on a creek

Which can be seen from the kitchen

and living room as well as the upper

bedrooms.

Charles now lives in this structure

also with a Nervi-esque roof.

It has

its own view into the forest.

For more information on how to see these works

and Charlesʼ foundation see www.savetrees.org

or Google Charles Bello