Indulging a Whim

detail

Wall around house

detail of glass bottle bottoms

Near the front door

September 6, 2010

Balfour, B.C.

It was cloudy, cold, and occasionally spitting rain so we decided to stay put at our RV spot on Lake Kootenay, and instead of following the Columbia we decided, in the words of retired undertaker David Brown, “to indulge a whim of a peculiar nature.”

David Brown was green. He thought something ought to be done with the used glass embalming fluid bottles he and his colleagues used everyday in the mortuary business so he decided to build a house with them. When he retired in 1952 he moved from Alberta to build his new home on the rock outcroppings along the shore of Lake Kootenay in Boswell, B.C. He put 250,000 miles on his car collecting the 600,000 bottles he needed to build the 1,200 sq foot house. The house is in a three leaf clover design for strength, and he left the screw on caps on the bottles for insulation. The house has been tested and it has an R60 insulation factor! It took him a year to build the house he and his wife lived in, and he spent the next 16 years there constructing terraces, turrets, bridges, and planting an extensive flower garden.

It's funny, yet impressive, and the since the interior has changed very little since 1953 some of us were quite familiar with the furnishings and kitchen design. What a way to spend Labour Day!

And about the Harmonized Sales Tax in Canada…….the Canadians are MAD! Everyone is complaining and in order to get rid of it each province will have to vote it out. B.C. now has 700,000 signatures to get it on the ballot, and put it to a vote.