Foam House
Fishing
isn't too bad off the front porch.
My
senior year at CU, I already knew I wanted to move to
Aspen after graduating. In 1968, Loveland was opening in
October and all serious skiers were there. I instructed at
Loveland part time and I found myself riding up the
chairlift with another instructor from Aspen. All the way
up to the top, I picked his mind about what it was like
living in Aspen and what could I expect.
When
I eventually moved to Aspen, I found myself framing at the
Roaring Fork Apartments. At first, I didn't realize who I
was working along side of. It was Boot.
Several
years later, after moving to Breckenridge, I read an
interesting article about a foam house under construction.
I recognized the name of the designer and builder. It's
Boot again. I see Boot around the county from time to
time, and even ended up in a class with him at CMC.
Ten
years later, I find him still living in his foam house,
and find out he has just remarried at the age of 69. His
wife's name is Charlotte Shintaku Gordon.
"Saturday
morning at 8:00, we were married. We were at Vail on the
ski slope and all of the ski school was there. You've met
Charlotte? Well, she is Japanese, raised in Japan. Her
father was Japanese from Hawaii. He fought for the
American forces in WWII. And then, after the war, he moved
to Japan and he met her mother there. She had three
brothers, one is deceased, one lives in Hawaii and one
lives in San Jose. Her mother still lives in Hawaii. So,
she is an American citizen right from the beginning. She
went to American schools in Japan. She wore her native
wedding dress and I wore mine, a Scottish kilt. It's funny
the way things work out sometimes. I fought the Japanese
in WWII and they were the enemy. Now fifty years later, I
marry a Japanese lady.
Cement
plastered over insulating foam.
"That's
when I got my nickname, by jumping out of an airplane. I
flew P-38's in WWII and was practicing air spins. I took
up an airplane to stall it. I stalled it by pulling the
stick back, then kicked in the rudder and the airplane
goes into kind of a flat spin.
"The
way you're suppose to pull it out is by kicking the
opposite rudder and turning it out; then pop the stick and
after one turn it comes out of the spin. Well, I tried it
three times and it wouldn't come out.
"So
I jumped out of the plane and pulled my parachute, and my
parachute wouldn't open. I waited and waited. This is an
optimist: First he thinks the airplane is going to come
out of the spin. Then he thinks that his parachute is
going to open. It did open, obviously, but on the second
pull. What happens is that you free-fall increasing in
speed at a rate of 32 feet per second, until you reach 130
mph, and then when the parachute opens (Boot snaps his
fingers), you stop immediately. My boots fell off. A
farmer found my boots and brought them back to the air
base. From then on, they called me boots.
The
kitchen under the dome.
I
skied Aspen just after WWII and had visited a couple of
times, and I liked it. In fact, when I lived in
Minneapolis, I had many friends, and belonged to the best
clubs and fraternities and so forth, but I never felt
comfortable there.
"I
started skiing when I was four years old. Started teaching
my friends when I was eight and professionally when I was
eighteen. When I headed to Aspen, I felt like I was home.
I don't know what it was, but I think it was a sense of
community we had. That's when I moved to Aspen, in 1964 or
something like that.
"I
was a carpenter and a ski instructor. The only problem
with Aspen was it didn't have the opportunity for economic
advancement. You could start a bar, but I wasn't
interested in starting a bar. Maybe you could be a
building contractor, but I wasn't interested in that
either, although I have done a little bit of building.
"I
was there six years. Then I moved to Vail for a couple of
years and taught skiing there. Then I moved over here
(Silverthorne) while still ski instructing at Vail.
"I've
work at a number of things to make a living. I wrote three
books, a couple of books on skiing. One was HOW TO SKI
POWDER NINE WAYS and another titled GORDEN TOWN. I spent a
lot of time learning, getting my Masters, and doing
spiritual things. I've spent a number of years on self
growth.
"I
came across something I really thought was worthwhile and
has even helped me at work. Something they call
'clearing.' I find there are all kinds of memories that
affect us. For instance, a couple of years ago I had a
student in my ski class who was afraid of anything steeper
than this floor (pointing to the ramp heading upstairs).
And he skied for six years. Anything steeper and he would
go into this wedge. He knew how to ski, but he was just
frightened of height. I tried all the conventional ski
stuff and nothing worked. So I said, I have this system
that might help you. So, come tomorrow morning and I'll
see if it works.
"So
the next morning he came and I use this system on him. In
seven minutes I find out that his brother had pushed him
off the breakfront into the ocean, in Australia, where he
is from. When he was three years old he fell off this
cliff and almost drowned. I found out by tapping into his
unconscious what the problem was. So, in only seven
minutes after finding the trouble and clearing him of it,
we go out on the ski hill in a private lesson. His skis
are right together. We went into the back bowls of Vail
which are black runs (expert). He didn't need me anymore
because he knew he was cleared of his problem. That was
really fun for me to see.
"I
especially enjoy teaching the kids. I taught about a year
and a half at the public schools. Another fellow and I, a
principal, started our own private school here. This was a
high school to turn the students on to education. Our
program was quite successful. It was called the Academy at
the Summit, but the kids called it 'Boot High' or 'B
High.' We really liked each other and we had a lot of fun.
It was just a little, simple school. We had about twelve
kids in the class. They all went back to school and they
all graduated. One was going to quit school and hated it.
He went back and got straight A's. Then he went to college
and still got straight A's."
Boot
takes a few minutes to talk to one of the people staying
in his home. The person rents one of his seven bedrooms
and the young lady hands Boot some cash.
Boot
and Charlotte in their foam house.
"Renting
out rooms enables me to dream a little bit. For instance,
this house is a symbol of my life's dream, which evolved
from awareness. I was a public school teacher in
Minneapolis, and had taken a class of eighth graders on a
field trip to a public library and to visit its
planetarium. Eighth grade students are all nerves and
twitching, and all this fiddling around just like nerve
ends. The librarian pushed this button and lowered a
parachute over the auditorium. It was the screen for the
planetarium to project onto. So immediately, they become
relaxed. I thought, what's going on here? What's causing
this immediate change in energy? There wasn't much else
around of interest. So then I realized curved surfaces are
more pleasing to most of us. And I made this amazing
discovery, that the first nine months of our lives are not
in a box. Then for thousands of years we lived in caves.
So we can feel more comfortable by living in rooms with
curved surfaces.
"One
of the problems I've noticed is that architects are
left-brained and, therefore, they are interested in things
instead of people. They are mathematicians and engineers
rather than artists or humanists. They design dwellings
with straight walls and ceilings. The cities of today are
not very beautiful. To me, they are monuments to the
architect, but they don't have the feeling and comfort
that most buildings could have. I don't think it's
comfortable to half the people in the United States. Half
the people in the country lean towards the right brain,
the artistic, the creative, which is the opposite of how
the engineer thinks. So, what I envision is a community
designed in the curves and so that's why I built this
house. So it would provide a model and show what could be
done with my concept of a new type of town, Gordentown.
Boot
is always enthusiastic.
"I've
had this idea for a place where people reach their
potential for something like forty years, since 1948. I'm
still interested in trying out the concepts. I believe
beauty is important. I certainly have an affinity for the
mountains.
"We're
looking at a couple sites down by Pagosa Springs in
southern Colorado. It's very pretty down there. The
concept of the town is that we need something very
beautiful. Plus that, I would like to see it be in a
garden setting. Of course this means that you must get rid
of the automobile. For instance, Aspen, Colorado, an
interesting town, but one-third of it is in streets. So
you use up a lot of territory. You go to Europe, for
instance Rothenberg, Broveria, and you see the little wall
cities with the narrow streets. To me, it has a feeling of
community and this basically is what I think is necessary
for a sense of community. You take the average city, it
doesn't seem to have that. This is what I noticed in WWII
in our fighter squadron, that when we were living
together, we all felt like a community. We didn't salute
each other.
"Anyway,
the sense of community in the fighter squadron was really
something. We had little clubs and then we had the tents
around them and then the mess hall and things for people
to do. So then I envisioned a community, a little cluster
or village. I thought that people should live in clusters,
where they could jointly use an art center or an exercise
room, and a hot tub and a swimming pool and a tennis
court. This house has a tennis court, an art room, the
lake and the river, and everything here, and I never used
it. But if you live in clusters, you encourage one another
an impetus to get going and help to reach your potential.
"I
think we need to have a sense of community through
interacting. So, each one of those different districts or
divisions has facilities not duplicated in the others and
gives you an excuse to go visit the village, or visit the
town, or go visit the neighborhood. I'm not talking about
sticking people up into little rooms in tall buildings,
like they do in apartment buildings in the cities.
"I'm
sure the condominium has a little bit of the feeling of
community, but doesn't have the elements needed for what I
envision. Firstly, you'll still have privacy. You don't
have the cars. One is the economic, and the other is the
spiritual, and the other is the educational. I think the
educational system should be part of the community. I
think we have a lot to do with creating self esteem in
students and that was my masters thesis back in 1954. All
these things are combined in the town that I envision. If
we build a town that works, if it's successful and there's
no crime, then people will start getting excited about
their lives, start doing things, feeling good about
themselves and with each other, love for one another, and
so forth. Amazing things are going to happen.
"I
was looking for a number of sites in various states. I go
to various sites and study a little bit, then make a
proposal. I thought that the site was very important
because the people would want that. I figured that if I
get the people, then I could go ahead and build the town.
That's all you need is a commitment from X number of
people to start it.
"Then
I found out that the real obstacle was myself. Remember
when Poco said: 'You've met the enemy, and he is us?' And
so, for the last nine years I've been trying to understand
what is wrong with me and therefore find out what is wrong
with everybody else. Because very few of us ever reach our
full potential.
"And,
of course, when you have a town, the most important
ingredient in a town isn't the buildings, the streets or
the street lights. It's the people in the town. So if you
can get people who are fairly clear, or enlightened or
what I call aware, you can probably have a very successful
town.
"As
you know, if you start a business, you have people there
work for you that are very dynamic and very sharp, you're
probably going to have a very successful business. But if
you have people that are not very clear, you're probably
not going to be very successful. So basically, what I want
to do with this is just to prove or show what can be done.
Nether words provide a model so others will emulate it.
"I
designed it, built it, and did everything. I didn't hire a
contractor. I did all of it except for the plumbing. I
buried part of the house and everything is free form. I
did all the sculpturing. I'm just trying to show what can
be done.
"Everyone
likes this house, but it's not for everyone. It's great
when the kids come over. Children really like this house.
They run around and really have fun. That gives me
pleasure. I kind of get vicarious enjoyment. Even my
renters love it. They want to buy it. It's a very
beautiful setting here. It's on the river and there is a
lake. I really feel a sense of accomplishment building
this place.
"But
you know what, I'd move tomorrow. You see, if someone
asked which would you like to do: go to the moon or build
Gorden town, there would be no question about what I would
do. It would be far better to build the town. No question
about it. I can see what would happen, how successful it
would be and how thrilling the change that would take
place. So, I think I've jumped off enough cliffs with my
skis."
Back
| 
