This is the creative writing studio Dad built in 1957 to get away from the noise of the children he had created. Actually, the writing studio is only the diminutive wing on the right hand side of the present building. Friday Kathleen and I barged in to the place; it had just been vacated by a bunch of young men who had been to a stag party the night before. Apparently they had been told to clean up when they left because the place was neat as a pin. It is used as a guest house now. The owner, Mr. Fernholtz, lives in the main house.
In the center of the building is the stone fireplace Dad and his helper built when Dad should have been writing books.The photo shows a section of what was once the exterior chimney face that rose at least 15 feet. They have smoothed, tuck-pointed and polished the intricate, hand-fitted stonework and it is a gem. Step down to the other side of the fireplace and you are in the original building that Tony Helgeson's carpenters built with hand tools. The girls baked bars for the men one day, but used tablespoons instead of teaspoons to measure the baking powder.
The fireplace has been fitted with a new mantel and a gas insert, but you can still see the array of beautiful stones Dad brought back from North Dakota. (Click and zoom into this high-def photo.) He lectured at all-school lyceums about Extraordinary North Dakotans and scoured the hills for interesting stones, bringing them home in the maroon 1949 Dodge.
Dad wrote a number of books here, including Boy from Johnny Butte, while seated near the green vodka bottle in the photograph below.
