End of an Era at the End of the Road
We got the last officially sanctioned woodburning sole-heat residence on the island. Back when the county still let us pioneers build our own shacks, we put in a Russian fireplace, 16 tons of brick with two flues and multiple horizontal paths that capture 90% of the heat from the wood we burn once a day. Very efficient burning, but not efficient enough when the burn bans roll in … unless you have a house whose only heat source is wood. Then you can burn wood.
The county stopped issuing owner-builder permits back in the 20th century, probably to protect us hobby carpenters from hurting ourselves with kickbacking hammers. They claimed it was to keep the building codes up to snuff, but I can tell you, they made us shack-whackers meet every one anyway. And then they made us sign affadavits in the event we ever sold our palace that we would disclose to the poor unsuspecting buyer that the house they were thinking of buying was built, not by a professional, but by us, slam-happy amateurs who didn’t care if our handiwork fell on us the first winter storm when the walls collapsed or the roof caved in. Not that my buyers would be very much fooled by the homemade doors or the stained glass transoms or the odd tile designs or the handmade furniture or the beach timbers holding up the beams or the cabinets and bookshelves made with exotic woods or the custom toilet seats that fit one particular butt particularly well.
Nah, I suspect they wanted the permit fees. I know, it sounds cynical on my part. Just a few extra hundred dollars to eliminate a right everyone who ever came to America or the South End has had since we first arrived on the continent. Even King George let the Pilgrims build their igloos without inspections or permit fees and George certainly wasn’t noted for his generosity. Admittedly, the island residents didn’t run out to dump tea in the Saratoga Harbor when the county banned owner-builder permits, but that isn’t really the point, you ask me. I know folks these days would rather just get a fat mortgage, hire a contractor, get the permits and pay the fees, then move in to their drywalled, energy-efficient, tsunami-proofed abode and watch the big screen high def TV in the throne room. Okay for them. But there might just be one more yahoo like myself who thinks it would be a Total Hoot to pick up a hammer and a saw and commence to erecting a house he would take pride in for the rest of his days, who doesn’t give a damn what the next buyer might think and if he doesn’t like it, tear it down and hire another built. We used to be people who prided themselves on their Can-Do attitude, who innovated and created and built from the ground up their ideas and their dreams. That was the America we all grew up in. I’m not sure that’s the America we live in now.
But … down on the South End, like other backwashes across the country, there are still a few of us. Maybe someday our shacks will be the museums of the future. Naw, they’ll get torn down. You know, if they don’t just fall down on their own.
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