La segunda vida de Henry Stuart. Historia de vida de un ermitaño y su cabaña

A Hermit's Refuge Is Now a Writer's Muse
By WARREN ST. JOHN
Published: May 7, 2006

FAIRHOPE, Alabama

Overthetransom.com

Henry Stuart, barefoot as usual, in the 1940's.

EVER since its founding in 1894 by a group of 28 utopian dreamers from Iowa, this quaint waterside town on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay has been a refuge for what Southerners politely call "characters."

There was Craig Sheldon, a sculptor known for making fantastical creatures, like a wacky insect he called "head holding high hopper," and Winifred Duncan, a spinster who lived by the water with four bloodhounds and was regularly arrested for canoeing at night in the bay, naked.

Strangest of all, perhaps, was an Idaho man named Henry Stuart, who moved to Fairhope in the 1920's, after being told by his doctor — incorrectly, it turned out — that he had only a year to live.

Mr. Stuart, who wore a long white beard and became known locally as the Hermit of Montrose, after a neighborhood in Fairhope, built himself a small round hurricane-proof hut out of concrete and lived in it for 18 years, apparently certain he might die at any moment. Mr. Stuart eventually died at 88 in 1946, somewhere in Oregon.

Bill Starling for The New York Times
Sonny Brewer in the hut that inspired
his first novel, "The Poet of Tolstoy Park."

Today, Mr. Stuart's hut in Fairhope has become an odd sort of tourist attraction, a kind of temple to eccentricity and individualism, thanks largely to another Fairhope eccentric, a goateed man often seen in a seersucker suit riding around town on a Harley-Davidson: the novelist Sonny Brewer.

Since the publication last year of Mr. Brewer's first novel, "The Poet of Tolstoy Park" (Ballantine), which is based on Mr. Stuart's life and the construction of his concrete hut, readers, along with various searchers, spiritualists and philosophical types, have been turning up at the hut to commune with Mr. Stuart. Two thousand people have signed a guest book Mr. Brewer left in the hut last year, and some have brought sleeping bags and spent the night inside.

"It's a special place," said Jimbo Meador, 64, a kayak designer who lives in nearby Point Clear and who meditates regularly in the hut. "The acoustics in there are pretty unusual. Like you say, 'Om,' and it really resonates."

Mr. Brewer, who is 57, is quick to cop to the charge of being an oddball, even by Fairhope standards. He has been a carpenter, a bookstore owner, a real estate agent, an editor and a rock musician, and he once sold vintage cars for a living, though he lost money at it.

Mr. Brewer has also been through a boat phase, an R.V. phase, a convertible phase, and several motorcycle phases. As for religions, he's tried a bunch of those, too: He was raised a Baptist, became a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Quaker, and converted to Catholicism for a while. Mr. Brewer said he's an Episcopalian — for now.

"I sometimes have a feeling I'm from another planet," Mr. Brewer said in a soft southern Alabama drawl. "Even my own behavior looks alien and ridiculous to me."

Mr. Brewer discovered Henry Stuart's hut in the 1980's during one of those career changes. He had quit his job as a carpenter, and was on his way to a seminar on selling real estate when he pulled into a parking lot about a mile from town. Though originally built on 10 acres of wilderness, the hut in the intervening years had been encroached upon as Fairhope grew. Office buildings have been built to within six feet of the dwelling. It now sits just off the parking lot of a local Coldwell Banker office, which used the hut for years to store its "for sale" signs.

"I thought, 'What is this crazy little house doing in a parking lot?' " Mr. Brewer recalled. "It was like finding a very strange bird nest in the forest. You want to know, 'What kind of bird built this?' "

Inside the real estate office, Mr. Brewer came across a framed copy of a newspaper article about Mr. Stuart and his hut. Mr. Stuart, the article said, left behind two grown sons in Idaho when he came South to die. He admired Tolstoy, naming the acreage around the hut Tolstoy Park, and with his white beard even resembled him.

Mr. Stuart was described as quick to lend a dollar, and unconcerned about repayment. And though described as a hermit, he accepted visitors regularly; 1,200 people signed a guest book he kept in his hut, according to one article, including the lawyer Clarence Darrow.

Mr. Stuart, who was in his late 60's at the time, built his hut over the course of a year and 16 days in 1925 and 1926, and refused all help with the construction, the newspaper reported. Mr. Stuart's bed was a hammock that hung 10 feet off the ground; he could get in only by climbing a ladder. He kept a loom on the floor that he used to weave rugs, which he sold for a living.

"I was completely mesmerized," Mr. Brewer said.

He managed to find two other newspaper articles about Mr. Stuart, and six photographs. Mr. Stuart is barefoot in all of them, even one taken with a woman in a winter coat.

The more Mr. Brewer learned about the man, he said, the more obsessed he became.

"I identified with Henry; he did what he wanted to do, and so did I," Mr. Brewer said.

He decided to try to write about Henry Stuart. He considered a nonfiction account of Mr. Stuart's life, but settled on fiction, "because I lie," he said. He wrote a couple of short stories about Mr. Stuart, and the first 20 pages of a novel, but put it aside in favor of an autobiographical novel about his own life, which he sent to a literary agent in San Francisco.

By now, Mr. Brewer had quit real estate to open an independent bookstore called Over the Transom, in Fairhope. It was losing money — a lot of money. Mr. Brewer's only hope was that his novel would sell, but his agent was not optimistic and asked him if he had anything else. Mr. Brewer mentioned the Stuart novel, which begins with Mr. Stuart taking off his shoes after hearing the news that he will die. Based on the first 20 pages and a six-page outline, the agent sold the novel to Ballantine for $100,000.

Mr. Brewer said he got the news hours before an appointment with a bankruptcy lawyer.

"I broke down and cried," he said.

Mr. Brewer's next move was to persuade a local banker who owns the hut and the land around it to rent the building to him for $9 a month. He wrote a draft of "The Poet of Tolstoy Park" in four fevered months, and then immediately set about restoring the hut, ridding it of "snakes and lizards and fast-food wrappers," he said, replacing windows and removing a wooden floor. When he was finished, he moved in to revise his novel — while barefoot.

"Where did Henry Stuart stop and Sonny Brewer start?" Mr. Brewer asked. "That line was not clear. Some ladies from the real estate office told me they thought I had gone crazy."

A local architect who studied the hut noticed that the diameter of the floor, 14 feet, perfectly matched the distance between the floor and the top of the hut's domed roof. The hut was also dug 16 inches into the ground, which at that depth is a constant 57 degrees, making the floor cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

When he was finished with his book, Mr. Brewer left a copy of the manuscript in the hut, and then left the door unlocked. Shortly after publication last year, he began to hear from people who had visited.

One of those people was Wilson McDuff, 35, a schoolteacher from Fairhope who spent a night in the hut last year with his father and son. "It was kind of weird to me," Mr. McDuff said. "I started imagining what it would be like to be Henry Stuart, living in a little bitty house like that. I was inspired."

Mr. McDuff's father died later that year in a cycling accident. Unable to sleep the night he heard the news, Mr. McDuff said he was drawn back to the hut. "I didn't feel like I was alone anymore," he said. "It was comforting to think about Henry Stuart and to know that just because you're not here doesn't mean you're forgotten."

Somewhere along the way, Mr. Brewer said, people began leaving coins and dollar bills in an iron skillet in the hut, money that seems to be lent and borrowed according to Mr. Stuart's principles.

"Sometimes I come in here and it's $65, sometimes it's $5," Mr. Brewer said with a shrug. "The pile just comes and goes."

Mr. Brewer said that so far he has remained on good terms with the banker who owns the hut. But one thought keeps him up at night.

"My fear is that sooner or later the proverbial offer that can't be refused might come along," he added. "I could see a Blockbuster Video standing where Henry's house is."

That thought has inspired Mr. Brewer's latest crusade: getting the hut placed on the National Register of Historic Places, a move that could help preserve it in perpetuity. So far it hasn't gone so well. Though the State of Alabama designated the hut a landmark, the United States Department of the Interior said that his application needed more work.

"They said it was too weird," Mr. Brewer said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/fashion/sundaystyles/07AUTHOR.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

The Poet of Tolstoy Park is the novel based on the true story of Henry Stuart's life, which was reclaimed from his doctor's announcement that he would not live another year." "Henry responds to the news by slogging home barefoot in the rain. It's 1925. The place: Canyon County, Idaho. Henry is sixty-seven, a retired professor and a widower who has been told that a warmer climate will make the end more tolerable. San Diego would be a good choice." "Instead, Henry chooses Fairhope, Alabama, a town with utopian ideals, a haven for strong-minded individualists. Upton Sinclair, Sherwood Anderson, and Clarence Darrow were among its inhabitants. Henry buys ten acres of piney woods outside Fairhope. Before dying, inspired by the writings of his beloved Tolstoy, Henry can begin to "perfect the soul awarded him" and rest in the faith that he, and all people, will succeed, "even if it takes eons." 

Modern day exterior

Sonny beside Henry Stuart's hut

Sonny in the hut revising POET

http://www.overthetransom.com/poet.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/fashion/sundaystyles/07AUTHOR.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

La cabaña de Anthony Butch, artista visionario de Alabama

Butch Anthony began building his log cabin in 1988 and is still tweaking it. It is made from heart pine salvaged from an old mill in Columbus, Ga., and put together with the help of his home-made rigging — cables and pulleys strung from the branches of pine trees. Mr. Anthony made the chandeliers on a screened porch from twigs and cow bones; the 1930s quilts came from his Possum Trot auction.

(...) Butch Anthony, also known as The Museum of Wonder, is quite the visionary. He started building his log cabin in 1988 and is still tweaking it. It is made from heart pine salvaged from an old mill in Columbus, Ga., and put together with the help of his home-made rigging — cables and pulleys strung from the branches of pine trees. Mr. Anthony made the chandeliers on a screened porch from twigs and cow bones; the 1930s quilts came from his Possum Trot auction.

photos by Robert Rausch for The New York Times

(...) Mr. Anthony dresses exclusively in Liberty bib overalls (he owns 25 pairs).

The house is built into the side of a hill, and the bedroom is half-underground, which keeps it cool in the summer. A rusty mattress spring from an antique bed makes a wall hanging; ladder-back chairs have seats woven from old ties.

A visionary man needs a visionary woman. When Ms. Chanin and Mr. Anthony met, he told her he was living in a log cabin in the woods. "But this was like a vision," she said. Now, his aesthetic and hers — she makes hand-stitched clothes and home goods under the Alabama Chanin label — have merged. Mr. Anthony and Natalie Chanin's 4-year-old daughter, Maggie, jumps on a bed next to a bathroom with "windows" made from "beaver sticks," a.k.a. twigs chewed by beavers.

Mr. Anthony describes his art, which includes old family portraits (not his own) embellished with skeletons or creatures of his own imagining, as "intertwangleism." His definition: "Inter, meaning to mix," he said, "and twang, a distinct way of speaking. If I make up my own 'ism,' no one can say anything or tell me I'm doing it wrong."

The kitchen is heated by a wood-burning stove. The mantel was salvaged from an old house being torn down nearby; the pine cones are from Longleaf pines, a historical Southern original that Mr. Anthony is reinstating on his property.

Credit goes to excellent reporting and photos from The New York Times.

Fuente: Log Cabin Dreams. Posted by Alison (April 12, 2010). The Doo Nanny is on my calendar for next year. (http://www.alinasadventuresinhomemaking.com/local-history/)

Robert Rausch for The New York Times.

When Natalie Chanin and Butch Anthony met, he told her he was living in a log cabin, “but this was like a vision,” she said

Butch Anthony is an inspiration: he’s a cook, he’s a folk artist (with a festival, the Doo Nanny, where they burn giant vagina effigies in honor of the Burning Woman, as opposed to the Burning Man), he builds log cabins, he wears only overalls and straw hats…the list goes on. Also, can we talk about his log cabins, because they are blowing my mind: I want to go to there! The old fixtures, the rust, the beaver sticks as window treatments (sticks beavers chewed up!), the simple white interiors: it’s all so enticing.

Read more about Butch Anthony in this piece in the Times. Watch the slideshow here. So good

Fuente: http://teenangster.net/2010/04/log-cabin-dreams/

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Museum of Wonder

Butch Anthony, a.k.a Museum of Wonder, has collected everything from arrowheads to beaver skulls from an early age. At fourteen he was building birdhouses and stuffing his own taxidermy. His first building, a little log cabin on his grandfather’s farm, eventually became his shop.

Over the years, Butch has honed his architecture and design skills. His home is built from stones and the timber of an old cotton mill, and his back porch — which overlooks a beaver swamp — is elegantly adorned with old license plates. In sharing his fondness for construction, he admits that he’s been working on his house for twenty-two years.

Butch’s taxidermy, collections and artistic endeavors have led to a full-fledged museum, which has in turn grown to be the grand attraction of his hometown of Seale, Alabama. This little shop has hosted the likes of the American Pickers and The New York Times.

As the story that has now become part of the Museum of Wonder‘s mythology goes, Butch’s friend John Henry Toney was plowing his garden one day and found a turnip with a face on it. He drew a picture on the turnip, which Butch put in mutual friend Frank Turner’s junk shop. He set a price of $50, and to their surprise someone bought it, thus beginning both Butch and John Henry’s careers as artists. Once they had a collection of artwork amassed, they decided to throw a little party in an effort to attract patrons to their newfound calling.

Thus the Doo-Nanny was born, which has since grown into a full weekend of art and music, complete with a sculpture burn (an homage to the effigy burn at Burning Man) and a film festival. Last year’s festival, which is now held on Butch’s family property, entertained over a thousand attendees. Doo-Nanny ’11, scheduled for March 26-27, expects an even heavier attendance. 

Butch Anthony's Museum of Wonder from Etsy 

The New York Times.
Photo: Robert Rausch for The New York Times

http://www.museumofwonder.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/garden/08doonanny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw

La artista Jansson Tove, la isla y la cabaña

The writer and artist TOVE JANSSON (1914–2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which were first published in English sixty years ago and have remained in print since. Sort Of began its association with Tove’s work by re-issuing her amazing cut-out tour de force, The Book of Moomin, Mymble and Little My, and we have since published the other two large format illustrated Moomin books, Who Will Comfort Toffle? and The Dangerous Journey. Each of these has been published with a new verse translation, created by leading British poet Sophie Hannah.

In her fifties, Tove Jansson turned her attention to writing for adults, producing a dozen novels and story collections, including the classic, bestselling The Summer Book. This was reissued by Sort Of and sold more than 100,000 copies in the UK. We have followed its publication with five further books, translated into English for the first time: The Winter Book (stories), Travelling Light, The True Deceiver and Fair Play. We will be adding a further story collection, Art in Nature, in 2012.

Sort Of is also publishing the first ever Moomins book – The Moomins and the Great Flood – in October 2012. This has never before been published in Britain.

“Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.” Philip Pullman

Museo de Arte de Tampere Moominvalley colección. Foto Jari Kuusenaho. 
Derechos de autor Moomin Personajes TM

Jansson Tove

Jansson Tove (* Helsinki, 9 de agosto de 1914, † ídem, 27 de junio de 2001) fue una escritora, pintora e ilustradora finlandesa de lengua sueca (la lengua sueca es minoritaria en Finlandia, pero se habla bastante en algunas zonas de costa).

Es particularmente conocida por su obra para niños, y sobre todo por haber creado los personajes de la familia Mumin. Estos figuran entre los grandes éxitos internacionales de la literatura de Finlandia, solo por debajo de Mika Waltari y el Kalevala.

Jansson pasó buena parte de su vida en una isla menor del golfo de Finlandia. Ilustró sus propios libros, pero también otros como El hobbit, de J. R. R. Tolkien, o Alicia en el país de las maravillas, de Lewis Carroll. 

En 1966 obtuvo el Premio Hans Christian Andersen de literatura infantil, por el conjunto de su obra. 

Tove Janssons old cabin at Klovharun.
The author of the Moomin books, Tove Jansson, had her summer place in Pellinge as already her parents had. 
In 1995 she decided not to go to her summer place anymore and left the cabin to PHF.

To the left of the door to the cabin.

This is place where many of the Moomin books have got written by Tove Jansson.
Klovharun was donated by Tove Jansson to Pellinge Hembygdsförening in 1995.
Klovharun is located in the Gulf of Finland south of Borgå, which is about 50km east of Helsingfors.

Cabaña de Tove Jansson:

Finnish artist and author Tove Jansson

(http://blog.apieceapart.com/page/6)

http://www.tovejansson.com/eng/saarigalleria.html#saarikuvat/saari02.jpg

http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/moomin/

http://www.pellinge.net/phf/phfeng.htm

http://blog.apieceapart.com/page/6

El músico y comediante Hans Liberg en su estudio cabaña

Hans Liberg

He has received many international awards, the highest being an Emmy Award in New York in 1997 for 'Liberg zaps himself'. In the same year he was also nominated for the Banff Television Festival in Canada and he received an honourable mention at the Golden Rose Festival in Montreux. Last, but certainly not least, he was asked to host the Emmy Award Gala in New York in 1998. An extra special honour, as he was taking the place of Sir Peter Ustinov!

Today his fame reaches far beyond the Dutch borders, attracting full houses all over Europe. The international character of his shows, his musical virtuosity, and his subtle humour make him a highly sought-after artist at large international galas. For example, in 2005 for Her Majesty the Queen, in honour of her birthday and 25th jubilee. For his striking talents as a musician and entertainer were highly praised, not just in the Netherlands, but also abroad. During the 'Begegnung mit den Niederlanden' (Meeting the Netherlands) festival (1989) Hans Liberg conquered the German hearts: ... 'Der holländische Musikkomiker bewies seine Weltklasse!... ' (The Dutch music comedian proved his worldclass!) (Süddeutsche Zeitung). In Switzerland he was called 'a musical entertainer of divine grace'. In Austria (2007) he was the first and only entertainer to ever perform in the Goldene Saal of the prestigious Vienna Musikverein, where subscriptions are still inherited from generation to generation. In 2008 Hans Liberg has been made a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion by the Dutch Queen, the oldest and highest civil order in the Netherlands. It's only granted to people with extraordinary skills and a personal and unique talent

BEAUTY: Architecture

Dutch musician and comedian Hans Liberg wanted a free standing recording studio and architect Piet Hein Eek gave him what he wanted. What looks like a neat squared stack of logs is actually a one-room studio that is on wheels for easy transportation. Window covers are cleverly disguised as log ends. The whimsy of the entire project seems to perfectly match Liberg's eccentric and fun personality!

http://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/beauty-architecture.html

http://thomasmayerarchive.de/details.php?image_id=168941&l=english

http://www.hansliberg.com/content.php?langID=2&id=21

Nostalghia

NOSTALGHIA
il paradiso perduto




"No hay paraíso hasta que se ha perdido."
(Marcel Proust)

Fotografía: Andrea Martiradonna

Fuente: Publicado por Mandarina D'Italie: 

http://mandarineditalie.blogspot.com.es/

PARAÍSO PERDIDO

 (RAFAEL ALBERTI) 

A través de los siglos, 

por la nada del mundo, 

yo, sin sueño, buscándote. 

. 

Tras de mí, imperceptible, 

sin rozarme los hombros, 

mi ángel muerto, vigía. 

. 

¿Adónde el Paraíso, 

sombra, tú que has estado? 

Pregunta con silencio. 

. 

Ciudades sin respuesta, 

ríos sin habla, cumbres 

sin ecos, mares mudos. 

. 

Nadie lo sabe. Hombres 

fijos, de pie, a la orilla 

parada de las tumbas, 

. 

me ignoran. Aves tristes, 

cantos petrificados 

en éxtasis el rumbo, 

. 

ciegas. No saben nada. 

Sin sol, vientos antiguos, 

inertes, en las leguas

por, andar, levantándose 

calcinados, cayéndose 

de espaldas, Poco dicen. 

. 

Diluidos, sin forma 

la verdad que en sí ocultan, 

huyen de mí los cielos. 

. 

Ya en el fin de la Tierra, 

sobre el último filo, 

resbalando los ojos,

muerta en mí la esperanza, 

ese pórtico verde 

busco en las negras simas. 

. 

¡Oh boquete de sombras! 

¡Hervidero del mundo! 

¡Qué Confusión de siglos! 

. 

¡Atrás, atrás! ¡Qué espanto 

de tinieblas sin voces! 

¡Qué Perdida mi alma! 

. 

-Ángel muerto, despierta. 

¿Dónde estás? Ilumina 

con tu rayo el retorno. 

. 

Silencio. Más silencio. 

Inmóviles los pulsos 

del sinfín de la noche. 

. 

¡Paraíso perdido! 

Perdido por buscarte, 

yo, sin luz para siempre.