West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747

http://www.realestatejournal.com/bui...tml?refresh=on

Is it a good idea to have a roof that was designed for lift? :-)

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 19:58:06 -0500, Kenny wrote in
::

http://www.realestatejournal.com/bui...tml?refresh=on


West Coast Woman To Build
Crash Pad Out of an Old 747

By Alex Frangos
From The Wall Street Journal Online

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. -- Francie Rehwald wanted her mountainside
house to be environmentally friendly and to be "feminine," to have
curves. "I'm a gal," says the 60-year-old retiree.

Her architect had an idea: Buy a junked 747 and cut it apart. Turn the
wings into a roof, the nose into a meditation temple. Use the
remaining scrap to build six more buildings, including a barn for rare
animals. He made a sketch.

"When I showed it to her in the office, she just started screaming,"
recalls the architect, David Hertz of Santa Monica. Ms. Rehwald, whose
passions include yoga, organic gardening, meditation, folk art and the
Cuban cocktails called mojitos, loved the adventurousness of the
design, the feminine shapes and especially the environmental aspect.

"It's 100% post-consumer waste," she says. "Isn't that the coolest?"

....

The salvaged wings and tail flaps of a Boeing 747 will serve as the
roof for this multilevel country home in California, as seen in an
architect's renderings from the front (above) and the side.

Ms. Rehwald, whose family founded the first Mercedes-Benz dealership
in southern California, is intent on adding to the genre. She has
reserved a junked jet to purchase, charmed local planning officials
and spent $200,000 on consultants.

"I am as much a part of this world as a bird, the frog in the creek,"
says Ms. Rehwald, who used to work at the family dealership, of her
environmental motives. She wears a white sailor's hat perched atop her
tossled blond hair, and her gold and silver bracelets jangle as she
speaks. "This is my antidote to the malling of America."

Mr. Hertz has designed homes for such boldface Hollywood names as
Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame. He says his aeronautical
inspiration struck after a long flight from Los Angeles to Scotland.
The 747, he says, "though designed in the 1960s, is still an
absolutely beautiful contemporary object. It was derived from pure
function."

....

First, Mr. Hertz had to find a plane. New 747s start at more than $200
million. He called Mark Thompson of Aviation Warehouse, who runs an
airplane junkyard in the California desert that resembles the
futuristic wasteland of "Mad Max." Mr. Thompson told him that $70,000
to $100,000 would buy Ms. Rehwald a decommissioned Boeing 747-200 that
still carries the faded logo of defunct Tower Air. Half the value was
in the ailerons, the moveable parts of the wing. Mr. Hertz figured he
could use them to control the awning on the patio by Ms. Rehwald's
swimming pool.

Mr. Thompson met with county engineering officials to persuade them
that the jet parts could withstand the strong winds that sometimes
buffet Ms. Rehwald's property. "It's difficult to get a city engineer
who is used to working with 2-by-4s and plaster to realize that an
airplane that flies 500 miles per hour can stand up to 40-mph winds."

Nancy Francis, supervisor of the residential permits section at the
Ventura County Planning Division, says she's excited such an unusual
dwelling is going up in her jurisdiction. "Everyone in the department
wants to go on the site visit when it's done," she says.

A winding one-lane road leads to the sunny hillside in the Santa
Monica Mountains where Ms. Rehwald intends to create her architectural
oddity. The 55-acre plot with views of the Pacific, now covered in
aloe, agave cactus and white oleander flowers, is one hour north of
L.A. It once housed dozens of buildings erected by Hollywood designer
Tony Duquette, who built with found objects and industrial garbage
such as old tires and radiators. A fire in 1993 destroyed most of his
strange handiwork. Ms. Rehwald bought the land last year.

Mr. Hertz and his assistants have been spending time in the desert
with the derelict jet, measuring it with long pieces of string and
contemplating its shapes. Eventually, he and Mr. Thompson will cut it
into pieces and truck it to a valley near his client's property. He
figures it will take a helicopter 10 hours -- at $8,000 an hour -- to
ferry the metal chunks up the hillside.

There he intends to assemble a compound of buildings connected by
narrow dirt paths. The jet's wings will rest on thick concrete walls,
forming the roof of a multilevel main house. The nose will point to
the sky, becoming a meditation chamber, with the cockpit window a
skylight. The first-class cabin will be an art studio. The signature
bulge on the top of the 747 will become a loft. A barn will house rare
domestic animals such as the poitou donkey. A yoga studio, guest house
and caretaker's cottage will round out the compound.

"We are trying to use every piece of this aircraft, much like an
Indian would use a buffalo," says Mr. Hertz.

He says the eight buildings will be scattered across the terraced
hillside as if it were a "crash site." As it happens, the site lies
under a jet flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. That
concerns the Federal Aviation Administration, which has asked Mr.
Hertz to paint special numbers on the wing pieces to alert pilots that
Ms. Rehwald's retreat is not a crashed jumbo jet.

In deference to neighbors such as Dick Clark and the former spouses of
Bob Dylan and Olivia Newton-John, the structures will keep a low
profile, blending into the land, says Mr. Hertz. He intends to
"bioblast" the metal with walnut shells to remove the Tower Air paint
and dull the sheen.

Ms. Rehwald says she has given Mr. Hertz a $1.5 million budget. She
promptly adds: "I'll be real fortunate if it's less than $2 million."

....

The wings of the old 747 will rest on thick concrete walls, forming
the roof of a multilevel main house. Other pieces will be used to
assemble an art studio, a loft and a barn to house rare domestic
animals.
Email your comments to .



That's an interesting story.

Here's a firm that specializes in aircraft homes:
http://www.airplanehomes.com/

Summary
We are offering a B727-200 aircraft for reuse as a home. It is
our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and
bearing arrangement so it weathervanes. We have tried to define
what we consider a “basic” airplane home. This project has all
the complexities of a normal home and we will try to deliver and
install it to the buyers needs, within the following limitations.

Is it a good idea to have a roof that was designed for lift? :-)

Exactly the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the sketches.

The Monk

In a previous article, Larry Dighera said:
Here's a firm that specializes in aircraft homes:
http://www.airplanehomes.com/

Summary
We are offering a B727-200 aircraft for reuse as a home. It is
our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and
bearing arrangement so it weathervanes. We have tried to define
what we consider a “basic” airplane home. This project has all
the complexities of a normal home and we will try to deliver and
install it to the buyers needs, within the following limitations.


Note the use of future tense. They haven't done it yet.

Besides, I don't even like spending 3 hours in a narrowbody - why the hell
would I want to live in one?

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Of course, I also got weird looks when I said that, as a kid, I watched the
toast brown in a toaster to see whether it browned at a linear or exponential
rate. -- Jeff Davis

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:


Here's a firm that specializes in aircraft homes:
http://www.airplanehomes.com/

Summary
We are offering a B727-200 aircraft for reuse as a home. It is
our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and
bearing arrangement so it weathervanes. We have tried to define
what we consider a “basic” airplane home. This project has all
the complexities of a normal home and we will try to deliver and
install it to the buyers needs, within the following limitations.


Might be an interesting site to surf around in, for information or just
for entertainment -- if it didn't insist on starting off forcing you to
endure a stupidly unnecessary blast of unpleasant noises and video.

First rule of web surfing: If a page comes up the word "LOADING" in the
opening window, forget about it. Click the "Next" or "Back" button, and
move on to something better.

On Sat, 7 Jan 2006 15:24:40 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in ::

In a previous article, Larry Dighera said:
Here's a firm that specializes in aircraft homes:
http://www.airplanehomes.com/

Summary
We are offering a B727-200 aircraft for reuse as a home. It is
our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and
bearing arrangement so it weathervanes. We have tried to define
what we consider a “basic” airplane home. This project has all
the complexities of a normal home and we will try to deliver and
install it to the buyers needs, within the following limitations.


Note the use of future tense. They haven't done it yet.

Apparently they've done it befo
http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/20...ign/index.html
http://www.univision.com/content/con...83&pagenum=1#1
http://www.airplanehomes.com/news.html


Besides, I don't even like spending 3 hours in a narrowbody - why the hell
would I want to live in one?

I might consider it for "instant" shelter in an area so remote that it
made sense.

But, you know what they say: There's an ass for every seat."

In a previous article, Larry Dighera said:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2006 15:24:40 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in ::
Note the use of future tense. They haven't done it yet.

Apparently they've done it befo
http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/20...ign/index.html
"I've sold three so far, and the first one should be erected this spring
or summer"

http://www.univision.com/content/con...83&pagenum=1#1
Well, that's in Spanish, so I can't read it, but the only picture is such
a bad Photoshopping job that I could have done better, and I hardly know
how to crop in Photoshop.

http://www.airplanehomes.com/news.html
Still not seeing any indication that they've actually completed one.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
I don't see what C++ has to do with keeping people from shooting themselves
in the foot. C++ will happily load the gun, offer you a drink to steady
your nerves, and help you aim. -- Peter da Silva

http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/20...ign/index.html

This thing was oeffered on Ebau several times, including the bomb
shelter house and the missile silo house.

The Monk

Paul Tomblin wrote:
In a previous article, Larry Dighera said:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2006 15:24:40 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in ::
Note the use of future tense. They haven't done it yet.

Apparently they've done it befo
http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/20...ign/index.html
"I've sold three so far, and the first one should be erected this spring
or summer"

http://www.univision.com/content/con...83&pagenum=1#1
Well, that's in Spanish, so I can't read it, but the only picture is such
a bad Photoshopping job that I could have done better, and I hardly know
how to crop in Photoshop.

http://www.airplanehomes.com/news.html
Still not seeing any indication that they've actually completed one.



Crashpad is a the last thing to call a retired aeroplane :-)