A Craftsman and His Cabin

In the sleepy Marin County town of Inverness, on a remote wooded ridge that overlooks the wide blue sweep of the Tomales Bay, sits a modest, low-slung redwood cabin that the late multidisciplinary artist-craftsman J.B. Blunk built entirely by hand. 

The Blunk House, which resembles a cottage from a midcentury-modern fairy tale, is no less than one artist’s architectural treatise on how to live. The integrity of his vision — a total embrace of the handmade — is evident upon first entering the yard. There’s a rock collection, its contents gathered by Blunk; a ceramic studio (with three kilns) where Blunk once worked; and a woodcutting studio that still contains pieces of redwood he gathered. Two towering arches loom over it all. The first was carved by Blunk from a single piece of redwood circa 1974. The second was cast in bronze and installed by Blunk’s son, Bruno, in 2002, the year Blunk passed away, as a tribute to his father.

From “Little House in the Big Woods” by Amanda Fortini for the New York Times; Photo by Lisa Eisner (@lisaeisnerjewelry)  

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