Chapin Mill Dispatches

Vol II, No. 8

2007-11-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

(Click on the photos for a larger view of the image...)

Certificate of Occupancy

A couple weeks before the large November sesshin we realized we were within striking distance of the final Certificate of Occupancy required to be able to use the eleven new bedrooms in the newly constructed Phase Two. At the same time, our Town of Stafford building inspector softened on his previous demand that the building be completely done, and said we would need only to meet the various safety parameters. Our contractor, Joe Condidorio, ran with this, managing to get the cement stoops poured at our fire exits, while our electrical contractor tied up the remaining fire alarm work. Just two days before the opening ceremony of sesshin, we secured our final C of O.

The Courtyard

Last summer Cornell University sculptor Todd McGrain, who created the basalt monument in the Founders Garden at Arnold Park, visited Chapin Mill with an eye toward designing a sculpture there. He felt at once that the courtyard was too sunken, and convinced us that it needed to be built up with a slight rise in the middle.

After wondering, for months, how to get topsoil and gravel, flagstone, trees, and bushes into the courtyard now that the surrounding building was nearly finished, it finally occurred to us that we need only go through the front door of the building—a gateless gate! We could get all the material that far, loaded into our golf-cart-sized "Workhorse" (a mini-dump truck), using the handicapped-access ramp. From there it could go into the wide front doorway, through the entry hall, and on into the courtyard via a small ramp. Voila!--topsoil and stone delivered where needed--and at a reasonable cost.

The project is underway, in preparation for a planting effort next spring. We can only do this, reasonably, when the weather is good, but already we’ve brought in perhaps a quarter of the stone and topsoil needed. The weather will determine whether we can accomplish this before winter.

As a starting point for our work, we’re using a plan proposed by landscape architect Dudley Breed, and agreed upon by the Chapin Mill Garden and Grounds Committee last winter. We have a copy of that plan posted on the bulletin board at the main entrance of the Retreat Center.

Zendo Entrance Doors

Bob Leverich, who designed most of the Retreat Center, also came up with a winning design for the decorative door into the zendo foyer from the courtyard. Built into the framework of the double door is a simple circle, or "enso,” the only symbol widely used in Zen. Such a door requires the kind of very stable wood that in former times would have pointed us to mahogany, an endangered species. The company we found to build it, New Energy Works, in Farmington, New York, came up with a choice of substitute woods, from certified plantations, that met their own green mandate. In the end we chose Sapele, a very dense African wood quite similar to mahogany.

Zendo Altar

The zendo altar is a work in progress and is likely to remain so for some time. Gerardo Sensei, from Mexico City, made a special visit to Rochester, to work out the basic proportions of the altar, consulting with Roshi and some others. The base now is simply a plywood box covered with fine cloth, but ultimately it will be done in hardwood. And the temporary wall panel behind the altar has been pulled back about a foot into the wide kinhin walkway, giving the altar an augmented feeling of three-dimensionality.

Zendo and Courtyard Exterior

Thanks to the dogged efforts of staffers at both Chapin Mill and Arnold Park, along with notable foreign visitors like Amala-Sensei and Majka Duczko, we are all but done applying cedar shingles to the exterior of the zendo and courtyard. Ed Kademan, our resident computer science Ph.D., marshaled his capacity for exacting work in leading this effort.

Flooring: Final Stretch

With our final Certificate of Occupancy in hand, and the warm weather behind us for the year, our attention has turned to finishing the oak flooring outside the zendo proper, in the hallways leading east and west from the zendo foyer, from the Kannon Room to beyond the water table area. This hallway work, since it is not susceptible to the serious expansion that must be prepared for in a wider area, is going much faster than the zendo did. We will have the hallway floors as well as those of the courtyard porch professionally sanded and finished, as we did for the zendo floor.

Hot and Cold Filtered Water at the Water Table

As we draw nearer to the end of the zendo phase of the project, fiscal constraints loom larger, and we've made a few changes in order to save money here and there. At the water table we decided not to buy ready-made cabinets, but rather to build them in situ ourselves. However, we didn't skimp on our original plan to have a small hot water heater at the water table, and to have filtered water there. The filtered hot water runs through a mini-hot water heater, and like the cold filtered water is constantly available during sesshin. So our days of carrying gallons and gallons of water every day from the kitchen to the water table area are over.

Progress on the Zendo Wood Pillars

When Tom Kowal was working at Chapin Mill this past summer, he produced a prototype wood column as an experiment to see if we could ourselves do this relatively challenging woodwork. Now Mike Chrest has taken over this project and quickly produced the sixty-four tapered staves, using a saw rather than a router to avoid tear-out problems with the Douglas fir called for in the zendo. The first of the four columns has been glued up as of this writing. Ultimately, each of the four columns is to be banded with copper in two or three places, as done with barrels. We will end up having something quite beautiful covering the four bare steel columns that now support the whole roof structure of the zendo, and at a fraction of the cost originally projected by our contractor Joe Condidorio to have them done in a professional shop. If a satellite with a relatively primitive camera were to take photographs through the windows of the dining room, where the columns are being built, analysts might well conclude that we were constructing some kind of missile silo!

Vol. II, No. 7

2007-06-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

Opening of the Zendo

All of a sudden it was upon us—our first sesshin in the new zendo! Just two days before, we had yet to obtain the Certificate of Occupancy required for us to use the zendo. But the long-awaited inspection that day by the Stafford Building Inspector, hosted by Lou Kubicka, yielded the signed C of O—and huzzahs all around. Months of focused efforts rewarded!

But with the opening ceremony of sesshin now just forty-eight hours away, we couldn’t take time to celebrate. Mike Chrest had to finish the installation of his tans (sitting platforms). Lou had to find a way to secure the new dividers (twenty lightweight fiberglass panels covered by fabric hand-sewn on by Cynthia Seefeld and Luna Ngo) to the tans. Tom Kowal and Ed Kademan still had Douglas fir trim to install around the many windows running along three sides of the zendo. And we had to come up with some 180 feet of carpet runners to cover the bare plywood sub-floor of the kinhin route that surrounds the zendo. It all got done, somehow (though the window-trim project continued through sesshin work periods), while a motley assemblage of rugs and carpet strips were collected and laid down to cover the plywood of the long, wide hallways leading to the zendo, thus making possible something of a dokusan rush.

Finally, the new zendo was ready for its First Sitter: the Buddha figure that has presided over the temporary zendo these past six years, patiently (and uncomplainingly) waiting in that basement hall to be sent to his assigned post. With most sesshin participants already having arrived themselves, we moved the large keisu and mokugyo to their new places, and then the makeshift altar, and finally the Buddha herself. The Opening the Eye of the Buddha Ceremony, however, would have to be postponed.

Little did the Buddha know that his first week in his new setting would be bedlam compared to his subterranean abode. Because of scheduling difficulties, we felt obliged to let our contractor take advantage of the clear weather by doing the final grading of the terrain around the new construction. What we didn’t know was that the bulldozer would be in operation—right around the zendo—for a full five days of the sesshin. We discovered that even with all the windows closed in the summer heat, the ten ceiling fans generated enough circulation to keep us fairly comfortable. And now the ‘dozers are gone for good, having left us a newly sculpted, sweeping field north of the new building.

The rows of zendo windows are just high enough for sesshin participants not to be tempted to gaze out at the wildlife that passes close by, like the family of foxes that sometimes romps in the finished new area to the north. Still, each window is filled with a view of the surrounding foliage—forty-five framed, verdant landscapes.

Once we figured out that the bulldozer was there to stay, we set about closing the windows high up in the zendo’s peaked monitor, which tends to funnel noises downward. Without waiting for a break period, we cleared the center aisle of sitters and enlisted a small team of participants to bring in a 20-foot ladder, set it up beneath the monitor, and make the several climbs necessary to close the windows. The knot of guys joining together at the base of the ladder to move and support it, Lou noted, was reminiscent of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.

The bulldozers provided us with an excellent test of our practice, and prompted reminders of the importance in Zen of becoming one with circumstances and conditions. Otherwise, though, the conditions were close to ideal. First there is the uplifting feeling of having emerged from the basement, magnified by the sheer spaciousness of the new zendo. One participant commented, “It was like sitting in an open field, with birds singing and wind in the trees.” Sitting on tans again was another pleasure, and having the new zendo configured the same way as at Arnold Park, with the altar against the far wall, gives the feeling of coming home after many sesshins away. One unexpected boon was the sense of privacy offered by a dedicated kinhin corridor, which runs around the zendo rather than winding through it. And then there was the satisfaction of having the courtyard porch for early-morning kinhin each day.

The zendo requires further work: the light cast by the ceiling bulbs is uneven in places and needs some tweaking; a big new altar is to be designed by Gerardo-sensei; a few more dividers are needed; and the kinhin route will be fully carpeted (though not until after the July sesshin).

The halls leading to and from the zendo need carpeting, as do the new bedrooms. There are many doors to be hung, trim to mount, bathrooms to finish, and landscaping to do in the courtyard. The swift progress seen over the past year will undergo something of a surge this week with the seventh annual Ralph Chapin Memorial Work Retreat starting tonight. Our temporary Certificate of Occupancy expires in a year, at which point we need to have completed all the work “as shown” on the drawings. But what a privilege to be part of such work!

Lastly, our young zendo needs seasoning, and enrichment, through zazen. Come out when you can and help potentize it with your mind energy.

Day Seven of the June 2007 Sesshin...the new zendo in action!

2007-06-16T20:47:00.000-04:00

Volume II, No. 6

2007-04-02T13:46:00.000-04:00

The Zendo Project is rolling along on schedule, with much having been accomplished in the three months since the last Dispatch. The latest photos are available on the Center’s website. Click here to view them.

Most of the large-scale, most visible work has been done by our contracted workers: All the drywall for the new building (Phase II of the Retreat Center) has now been hung, a task that took the crew of pros just a month. (The drywall in Phase I took staff and volunteers many months to put up.)

The heating and ventilation work is finished, as is the rough plumbing and most of the rough electrical work. The state-mandated fire-sprinkler system, not required by law when Phase I was built, has also been installed.
Our hired crew of “mudding” specialists is currently applying the third coat to the drywall, another demanding task that took months for our ZC workers in Phase I – and left two of them with long-ailing shoulders. Final sanding will take place next week, during our 7-day sesshin.

In the past of couple weeks the Center has deployed a growing crew of our own workers at Chapin Mill, and over the next month we will take over completely. Already our members have effected big changes:

Progress on the porch surrounding the innercourtyard has been dramatic, both top and bottom: the flooring was finished yesterday (by Mike Chrest, Ed Kademan, and Stevan Veljkovic), and will get its first use for early-morning outdoor kinhin at this sesshin. The beaded porch ceiling, supervised by Tom Kowal, has been completed about a third of the way around the courtyard. Today the flooring crew began laying the flooring for the east-facing yaza deck.

Woodwork has been built around some of the windows and doors in the courtyard, so shortly we will be able to begin applying the individual wood shingles. These have already been factory-stained by the manufacturer—another task that took our staff months to do for Phase I.

Stain is being applied to the interior trim around the large glass doors leading into the courtyard, as well as to the many (65!) windows in the zendo.

Today the wood flooring for the zendo arrived, and we’ll begin installing it as soon we we’ve primed and painted the zendo.

Across the creek and up the hill from this hive of activity, Roshi’s gravesite is soon to receive its finishing touch. The beautiful new bronze plaque bearing his name has finally arrived from the foundry, and now awaits only an appropriately sized stone for its mounting at the gravesite.

Volume II, No. 5

2006-12-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

The Kannon Room

The past fortnight has found Lou and Stevan at work on one of the more distinctive design elements of the Zendo Project: the two decorative ceiling beams that will go in the new Kannon Room. First they had to find trunks of the just the right girth, which were waiting for us on our own property in the form of two black cherry trees, one of which had fallen a few years ago near the cabin on the south side of the pond. These then had to be sawn to shape with a ‘chain saw’ sawmill , and voila! our two beams are now ready to be raised.

Yesterday the concrete floor of the Kannon Room was poured. After we lay carpeting over it, we’ll have a Kannon Room that will double as a space for our dokusan waiting line. The adjacent bedroom, acoustically buffered by special insulation, will serve as our dokusan room until we have the final half-million dollars we need to build the northeast wing of the new building, where those two areas will be located.

Zendo

The zendo roof monitor, or cupola, is now in place, rising above the other roofs of the retreat center. The underside of it was to be a louvered ceiling section designed to block direct sunlight that might fall directly on sitters. But now it occurs to us that it would only be in late June and early July that the sun (such as it is in these parts) would climb high enough in the sky to present a problem in that way. So we’ll try omitting that element for now, and see how the sunlight tracks next summer. (Shades on that south bank of monitor windows could correct the problem if necessary). Meanwhile we’ll have clipped off some ten thousand dollars in building costs—while offering a view up into the monitor from below that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

The Building Committee has decided to carpet the perimeter of the zendo, where kinhin will take place. The carpeting will offer some relief to people who now find that walking on bare floors in kinhin sometimes exacerbates existing foot problems as sesshin goes on. The rest of the zendo, though, will have oak flooring.

For all of the benefits we’ll enjoy upon moving into the new zendo next year, there is one that at this point remains iffy: sitting on tans (sitting platforms). To be up off the floor during zazen is a big plus for sitters, but maybe even more of a boon to the zendo monitors, who use the kyosaku so much during sesshin. So if a donor in search of bonus merit were to come forward soon to cover the expense of building tans, we can begin that project in the next few weeks so that they will be ready when the zendo is finished. They will be similar to the ones at Arnold Park, made of cherry wood.

Miscellany

The flooring for the porch surrounding the courtyard arrived last week, as did a shipment of cedar for the exterior window-and-door trim. The porch floor and the cedar exterior wall work are to be done by Chapin Mill staff and volunteers. Are you there?

We are awaiting the arrival of the exterior doors, which will enable us to then enclose the new construction and get it heated. “Rough-in” electrical work will start very soon, as will the sprinkler fire protection system mandated by code.

The “rough plumbing” work is nearly complete, and the heating and air-conditioning duct work underway in the basement.

More December 2006 photos of Chapin Mill are available here .

Vol. II, No. 4

2006-11-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

The Zendo Project

Progress on the Zendo Project (Phase Two of the Retreat Center)has been so swift that we’ve hardly been able to keep up with the changes. It’s been two months since our last Dispatch, and it seems to have taken that long to catch our breath enough to write about what’s been happening.

When the last Dispatch went out the only vertical structure to be seen above ground on the construction site was a curved outer wall of the future Kannon Room. That’s how things stood on Day 1 of the October 7-day sesshin,but we emerged from that sesshin to behold the newly-risen skeleton of much of the new building. It seemed to have sprung up like magic. It was not the quietest of sesshins.

Every weekday brought crews of framers and foundation workers streaming into the site in their pick-ups and SUV’s, sometimes well beforedawn, even before the 5:15 chanting, when they would have to work by the light of their headlights. Cement trucks and dump trucks would roll by just yards away from our temporary zendo,while morning dokusan was in progress. For the rest of the day our sitting would be punctuated by hammering, drilling, and other, unidentifiable (to most of us) noises. These intermittent sounds would sometimes be jarring, but mostly they seemed to echo the vigorous inner work that was going on in the zendo. They provided counterpoint to our zazen--and stimulus.

The speed with which the foundation and basement was completed, as well as the floor framing and wall framing, is all the more remarkable in that this has been an exceptionally rainy late-summer and autumn. What’s more, the work has been uniformly first-rate, a priority to us that we paid extra this time to ensure in order to avoid time-consuming corrections later. Before the trusses were fastened to the walls, our architects conducted a formal inspection of the work and verified that the wall framing was straight, plumb, and square—qualities close to our heart in Zen!

The climax of the work done during the October sesshin came on Day 6, when a large crane hoisted andthen lowered the entire steel structure for the zendo roof onto the steel-post-and-I-beam frame, where it was then bolted into place. The next step will be to erect the wood framing for the roof monitor (or cupola, which will provide both light and ventilation for the zendo), which will rest atop this steel structure.

Department of Impermanence

Buffalo, which is just 45 minutes west of Chapin Mill, made national news last month when it was clobbered with a freak storm that left two feet of snow in its wake.Chapin Mill got just half that, but with leaves still on most of the trees, the weight of the snow was enough to wreak plenty of destruction. Casualties included one of the three giant sycamores on the great lawn next to the Mill House; the showpiece magnolia by the waterfall; the willows in front of the retreat center, alongside the stream; and so many other trees that we’re still sawing up and carting away the debris.The cleanup effort got a big boost about two weeks ago at a special 2-day Sangha work intensive that brought out almost all of the Rochester staff as well as other local members.

Construction Photo - 10/28/2006

2006-10-31T14:03:00.000-05:00

Construction Photo - 9/15/2006

2006-09-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

A view of the east corridor basement. The brown square in the left center of the photo is the future courtyard. The white section just above the courtyard is the curved back wall of the Kannon Room. To the right of the Kannon room, with four red bars protruding at the corners, is the zendo.

Vol. II, No. 3

2006-08-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Center is closing now for its annual two-week summer break, but before doing so we wanted to shoot out another Dispatch to flag the most recent developments.

The New Bridge

On the 18th of this month, with participants for the August 7-day sesshin beginning to arrive, we finally connected the new building site and the older Chapin Mill settlement with a bridge spanning the creek. The bridge is not finished yet – we’ll want to change the decorative tops of
the posts and extend the railings – but we threw it up so that it could be used during sesshin. Still, everyone seems to be delighted with it.

When you step out of the Retreat Center and look south, it’s the first thing you see. Spanning the creek at an oblique angle, it adds a prominent new feature to the site visible from all sides. And because the bridge is fairly high, standing on the middle of it and looking upstream offers a fresh view of the surrounding landscape as well as the rough-hewn creek itself, with its islets and tree stumps and its clear water gurgling over small natural dams.

The Zendo Project

The other picture shows the foundation of the Zendo Project as it stands today. The curved concrete wall on the left defines the Kannon Room, and will be faced with stone, both inside and outside. The large, nearly square area constituting the foundation of the zendo is actually a 48-inch-high crawl space with an insulated concrete floor. There is a full basement visible under what will be the west hall. This basement continues in front of the zendo, and will also run back under the east hall connecting to the “Phase One” building. These “sub-areas” will provide much-needed storage space, alleviating chronic problems for the Center in that department.

Vol. II, No. 2

2006-07-20T15:28:00.000-04:00

At this very moment a team of sixteen men is swarming like ants behind the Retreat Center, in and out of the gargantuan pit that will become an extension of the existing basement. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, see the photos here.

Our Sixth Annual Ralph Chapin Memorial Work Retreat once again saw a great deal accomplished by the thirty-odd members who participated. Here are some of the highlights and photos :

massive clean-out of brush and invasive species above the parking lot...revealing a wood split-rail fence.

a makeover of the pond: removal of shore seaweed and scum

new single-entry door installed in upper barn, so we don’t have to always slide the large barn door open and closed

thorough cleaning of windows and screens in the retreat center

edging, weeding, and mulching of all the perennial beds (average age of the work crew: 65!)

massive grape vines, brambles, logs, and fence posts cleared from the orchard side of the stream and hauled away by our dandy new "Work Horse"

large green-ash tree, long growing from a fallen position at the edge of the Mill House field, yields to chain saws, loppers, and a wood-splitting mall

other: compost piles reorganized; good start on farmhouse stone walkway; weeding of path to Roshi Kapleau’s gravesite and of the Mill House patio; miscellaneous transplanting, tree removal and trimming; mailbox refurbished; stepping stones laid across stream; new irrigation pump installed for gardens

The three girls in the Coming of Age Program, Sadie Frank and twins Hannah and Molly Snell-Larch, nearing completion of their 2-year commitment, pitched in as well. They gathered forces in the orchard and picked buckets of cherries that were immediately rendered by Maria Elena’s kitchen crew into award-quality pies served at lunch. They toiled over the labyrinth in the Mill House field, setting those hundreds of bricks deeper into the turf so that mowing will no longer be a problem. And they found time for evening campfires and excursions into town for ice cream and miniature golf. Their most lasting memory, though, might turn out to be the flying squirrels that visited them in the Guest House and scratched at the screens each night. In no time Sadie, Hannah, and Molly became “The Flying Squirrels.”

Judging by enthusiastic comments spilling out in dokusan and during the final lunch, the work retreat left participants uplifted by days of shared effort in the simple tasks of zazen and work—with some relaxation and play thrown in—while surrounded by woods, meadows, and stream. Thank you, Ralph, and count on us to be back in force next year!

Vol. II, No. 1

2006-06-21T15:25:00.000-04:00

The presses are rolling again. The Chapin Mill Dispatch was launched when we broke ground in 1998 as a way of keeping the Sangha informed of developments in the project. Its publication was suspended in the fall of 2004 when we finally secured our Certificate of Occupancy and held the inaugural sesshin at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center. With The Zendo Project (Phase Two) now underway, it is time to get the news out again. As before, it will be sent out irregularly, and written by Roshi, with generous assistance from Lou Kubicka, Chapin Mill Caretaker and Foreman of construction.

Let The Zendo Project Begin!

On Monday of this week the resident staff at Chapin Mill wakened to the sound of chain saws. Joe Condidorio, our contractor for Phase One, was back! We had concurred with him that some of the trees on the steep hill overlooking the site of the new construction would pose a danger to the project as well as to his workers, and had to come down before excavation could begin. On full display now is the towering, three-trunked sycamore (a.k.a. “the three pillars”) that had been veiled by its immediate neighbors. (The other “three pillars” are the three cedar trees standing next to the bend in the road, down from the existing Retreat Center).

By yesterday a bulldozer (using laser technology) had already leveled the site. It pushed several hundred yards of fill toward the low area north of the Retreat Center, greatly extending the flat, grassy area where the new zendo will sit (and us in it). With that effort we were spared the task of carting away about 400 truckloads of clay and sand—at a cost of perhaps $50,000 or more. Such an effort would also have taken a serious toll on our road.

We will probably gently slope the land beyond the zendo northward, which will give us greatly improved access to the area of our land that abuts the swamps of Horseshoe Lake, as well as our own fields and woods back there. And with the zendo to be nearer our wetlands, the sounds of swamp birds and frogs will become part of the sesshin experience.

Air Conditioners Installed

Anyone remember the conditions in the 7-day sesshin last August? The heat and humidity in the zendo were not just stifling, but had the effect of rendering the sesshin limp. There were other ill effects as well: a mold and mildew “bloom” in the zendo and elsewhere in the basement that for the past two years required much work to overcome. With a rental group also reporting a disappointing experience because of the humidity, Roshi accepted the advice of the Chapin Mill Management Committee that it was time to activate the previously installed cooling units in that building.

So we now have air conditioning in the basement for the temporary zendo, and upstairs for the kitchen and chair zendo. When the zendo is vacant the air conditioning there will be used only enough to remove moisture from the air, lowering the temperature to just ½° below its natural state. With the zendo doors closed, this should keep the walls from sprouting mold, and by storing all our cushions and mats there, they too should be kept free of the problem.

When the summer heat climbs high, the kitchen and the chair sitting room will be air conditioned enough to bring down the temperature to about 78°.

Bridge Project

For years now, people at Chapin Mill who wanted to cross the stream en route to or from the main entrance to the Retreat Center have had to pick their way over two planks laid end-to-end. But thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, we will soon be installing a wooden footbridge, similar in design to the one in the famous Claude Monet painting. It is 20 feet long and 3 feet wide, with side railings. The bridge will rest on two small steel I-beam trestles anchored in concrete below the stream level. On each side of the stream there will also be a 10-foot wood walkway that will, in effect, be part of the bridge.

All of this is part of a comprehensive landscaping plan, designed by our landscape architect, Dudley Breed, in collaboration with the Garden and Grounds Committee, for the area in front of the main entrance to the Retreat Center, between the road and stream. The new design is expected to create a greater sense of intimacy with the natural stream bed, which until now has been somewhat hidden in high weeds and foliage. As part of this plan we will also level out the area somewhat and then maintain it as a meadow of short grass, where a picnic table or two could go. It could also be suitable for sitting, perhaps with the help of some low, individual zazen platforms.

The south side (the Farm House side) of the stream is also being enhanced, to make the stream more inviting. We cut some huge tangles of willows and scrub trees, bushes and weeds on that side of the stream to begin to open it up, but we haven’t yet begun to implement Dudley’s full plan there. A good project for the upcoming Ralph Chapin Memorial Work Retreat!

The Japanese Baths

Over the past couple months Helen Fuller has done yeoman's labor to help bring the baths at Chapin Mill to completion, squeezing precious time out of her householder’s schedule. Her tiling work, laid in the artful style of Mexico, has drawn nothing but praise, not least of all for the colors: cobalt blue together with terra cotta. She has also trained Chapin Mill resident Stevan Veljkovic to be able to carry on the tiling and grouting once she returns to New Zealand this summer.

The final hurdle to surmount in this project is with the mechanicals. The original plans for them were lost in a computer hard drive disaster, and it will probably take a swimming pool contractor to provide and install the mechanical components necessary to run the Japanese Bath in accordance with technical and health standards. So no one show up there with your towel yet . . . .

New Dining Room Tables

Those plastic tablecloths are gone, and with them the makeshift tables (doors, actually) they covered. Thanks to a special donation, in their place now stand gorgeous new cherry tables handcrafted by Tom Kowal. The room is now glowing!