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Site Visit: September 9, 2016

Last Friday found us back on-site for a meeting and to see recent progress. We couldn’t help but notice that the framing crew had a Crock-Pot cooking lunch on the Waterfall Patio. The sight (and smell) of that set-up immediately sent our imaginations back to the last Food Retreat when our guest chefs prepared a memorable dinner in […]

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Site Visit: August 23, 2016

Progress continues despite the unusual (yet very welcome) August rains. On the morning of our visit the clouds finally broke leaving behind clear skies with steady winds gusting through the new breezeways. Framers have nearly completed the 2nd floor of the Lodge. Landscape crews have created an accessible pathway leading to the Library beneath the Great Hall (image […]

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The Tenacious Tables

A handwritten note on the back of this photograph tells the story: “Table custom made for Laity Lodge – one of ten. Mrs. Mary Holdsworth Butt inspects a pecan dining room table made by Travis Burt in the H-E-B Wood Shop in Corpus Christi © 1960.” These tables have resided in the dining room, playing host to countless […]

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Re-establishing Place: A Personal Reflection on Renovation

At the beginning of the summer, one of my colleagues was in San Antonio when he ran into one of Laity Lodge’s faithful guests, a woman who has come to a retreat every year since the mid-1960s. Before he could offer a proper hello, she declared: “I just don’t know what I’m going to do […]

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Framing Continues

Framing continues at the Lodge. Guest rooms already convey a discernible atmosphere with their generous windows opening onto both the meadow and river sides.

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Peter Zumthor: Triggering Vibrations

“When an architectural design draws solely from tradition and only repeats the dictates of its site, I sense a lack of genuine concern with the world and the emanations of contemporary life. If a work of architecture speaks only of contemporary trends and sophisticated visions without triggering vibrations in its place, this work is not […]

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Video Postcard: Concrete Pour

Crews gathered before dawn in preparation for the 20+ concrete trucks that began arriving (through the river, up the hill) at 5:00 a.m. The highly choreographed sequence of events stretched into the late afternoon when the final wooden forms were removed.

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Lodge Framing

After all the slow work leading up to it, framing is a fast and gratifying process. Everyone can see the progress at the end of each workday. Suddenly a Lodge exists again.  

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Lodge Concrete Pour

The story of the pre-dawn pouring of the Lodge foundation is best told by an email sent to all HEBFF staff from the Director of Safety and Regulatory Compliance: On Wednesday morning at 5:00 AM, the concrete pour will begin on the foundation of the Lodge building. It will last through the day with 20+ concrete […]

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Making Way for Cedar Brake

The last bit of large-scale demolition took place last week with the removal of the old Cedar Brake building. Now crews can begin preparing this same site for the new Cedar Brake which will feature a mini-compound of four buildings around a central courtyard.

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