Tiny House Design Build 2013 begins at Yestermorrow amidst the glory of fall in Vermont. It's so good to be back home at Yestermorrow. Check out my Yestermorrow Fall Foliage Slideshow for more photos.
I arrived at Yestermorrow late last night so I would have some time to settle in before I begin teaching the two-week Tiny House Design-Build course this evening. Arriving by taxi in the middle of the night was exactly how I first arrived here for the very first time three and a half years ago to begin my Certificate in Sustainable Building and Design. Luckily, I found a classmate in the taxi line at the airport, so Sam and I caught a ride here together. When we arrived on Yestermorrow's rural campus in the middle of the night with no sense of where we were - or where we should be - we took ourselves on a self-guided tour in the dark, eventually our finding beds to crash in. We awoke to a quiet Sunday, getting our bearings before launching into the three-week core class Ecological Design in the Built Environment.
So it was deja vu last night as I bid the cab driver farewell and found my way to Elizabeth Turnbull's tiny house. Yet this time I accomplished it without any trouble and instead navigated by memory and a great sense of homecoming. (Though I will say the incredible stars were quite a distraction!) Elizabeth's story was one of my original inspirations for enrolling in courses at Yestermorrow. She had been taking a course at Yestermorrow when she found out she'd gotten into Yale's forestry school, so she decided to build herself a tiny house to serve as her home base while she was in graduate school. She and I had the chance to talk on the phone as I made plans to do the same thing myself. Elizabeth lived in her little house for 3 years and has now brought it back to Yestermorrow so it can serve as a cabin for visiting students and faculty.
I settled in right away and got a great night's sleep. This morning I understood in an instant, before I even crawled out of the loft bed, what the all the fuss is about. Autumn in the Northeast is truly spectacular! Photos don't begin to do justice to the complexity and texture of the fall foliage.
It's been a gorgeous day, perfect for reacquainting myself with the Yestermorrow campus, meeting new interns, and getting paperwork squared away. I was here in June for the Tiny House Fair, so there weren't any big surprises during my walk this afternoon, but it's a quiet Sunday so I've had a chance to really soak it in. What is it about loving a place so dearly and sincerely that gives us that sense of home? I feel like Yestermorrow makes me a better person and I can only hope that I can give back to it with my earnest devotion to creating better homes and communities.
As I walked around, snapping photos of all the structures, and admiring them against the backdrop of fall foliage, I couldn't help but think about what a long three and a half years it's been! I've completed my certificate at Yestermorrow as well as my Masters of Urban and Regional Planning. I was scheming a tiny house back then and drafted up some ideas in the Less is More class (which I'll be teaching at Yestermorrow next spring). Now I've lived in several tiny houses and I'm involved with four tiny house start-ups.
Teaching the Tiny House Design-Build class at Yestermorrow is a dream come true! I'm honored to be teaching with talented and experienced designers and builders: Paul Hanke, Patti Garbeck, and Lizabeth Moniz. As I scan at the roster for the Tiny House Design-Build class and look over the Program Worksheets our students submitted once again, I am eager to meet everyone and learn more about their tiny house dreams. It's bound to be a fascinating two weeks! Follow along!