Discovering the Trades
photography: Eric Kiel
(page 1 of 3)
Building beautiful homes is nearly a competitive sport in the Wood River Valley. Some of the best architects, builders, and designers in the world hone their crafts here. But, who actually creates the exquisite and technically demanding details in these projects? Whose hands are blistered at the end of the day?
Often, those hands belong to the people you see in the market everyday. Maybe the neighbor you don’t know very well. Or, the guy in the torn, stained Carhartts next to you at the bank on Friday. Makes you wonder what Michelangelo looked like in his painting smock, doesn’t it?
In a creative and symbiotic cycle, the master craftsmen of our Valley bring to fruition the hopeful concepts of clients, architects and designers. In turn, the architects, designers and builders call on these craftsmen again and again to push the edges of their crafts, to take creative risks, to redefine possibility. Read on to get inside the heads of three local craftsmen whose beautiful works add grace notes to our daily lives.
Don Fraser
When it comes to choosing the stones for his trademark fireplaces, Don Fraser is finicky about which ones make the cut. “I reject a lot of rock,” the 71-year-old stonemason says. “Some of them may be good rocks, but they just don’t serve the purpose.”
His selection process starts with a mental picture of the stones he’d like to include. Then he carefully studies each rock, judging it on shape, size, and color. He admits that, in the end, “It’s the rocks that dictate what I do.”
If you’ve been to the Sun Valley Resort, you’ve probably seen the by-products of Fraser’s meticulousness. The lodges at River Run, Warm Springs, and Seattle Ridge all exhibit his towering fireplaces and stone veneer. And even if you haven’t been to Bald Mountain, you may have seen Fraser’s work when he was featured on HGTV’s Modern Masters in September 2003. For the soft-spoken craftsman, the television attention has been, well, “embarrassing.”
With more than three decades of experience working in stone, the Denver native is carrying on a family tradition. “My father was a mason and my grandfather was a stone carver,” he explains, a small smile lighting up his tan, chiseled face. “I started as an apprentice when I was fourteen. My parents used to tell me it was something to fall back on.”
Fall back on it, he did. Fraser got his start working on the Bavarian Villages in west Ketchum in 1970. “Carl Wick was the contractor,” he says. “He hired me to lay block, then gave me a chance with stone.” Fraser was a “dynamite bricklayer”; but, finding that too mechanical, he turned to stonework for the challenge and creativity.
The Limelight in Warm Springs was his first rock job. Soon after, the demand for his skills forced him to begin renting mixers and wheelbarrows. “A lot of people saw my work, and it just sort of mushroomed from there,” he says. “I started picking up jobs on my own.”
Fraser started Wood River Masonry in 1975, and runs the business from his home to this day. Over the years, he has built fireplaces with round, smooth-flowing river rock from area streams, and with flat, sharp-edged stones from quarries throughout the West. His favorite undertaking thus far is a Ketchum home that combines both. “The whole exterior of the house is river rock,” he says. “It’s really wild. We used local river rock and then mixed in some brown rock from Montana. [The color] gives it more variety.”
Fraser built his own home in Indian Creek, and it is equally distinctive. Featuring a unique, circular stone sitting room with four-foot-thick river rock walls, a built-in fireplace, and a skylight to let in the blue sky and stars, the home is “just a little bit different,” as Fraser says wryly.
“Stonework has become quite popular in the Wood River Valley,” he adds. “We’re turning out some pretty good masons.” Among them is Fraser’s son, Cameron, 25. “He’s pretty damned good,” beams the proud father. A family tradition is moving on to the next generation. >>>
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