| Am I Alone in This? Bill Bottrell in the January 2001 New Settler |
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shore it up. I did nothing intentionally. It had that "Asian" feeling from 1924. It's a Federalist-style architecture, which schools were intended to be, and it has these horizontal lines throughout, that were there. And if you take all the things added out - I took the linoleum off the floor, which was old and worn out - it ends up with these beautiful fir floors, and when that floor gets shined up, you can envision a Zen monastery. It's beautiful that way. But it is the exact materials that were in there when it was a new school - with the exception of the blackboards, which were attached to raw walls and I had to purchase redwood and put it where the blackboards were. There are three rooms identical essentially: they were the three classrooms; and there are two smaller rooms that were the principal's office and another office. I kept the floor plan intact but I moved a stage to the center room and |
envisioned it a quasi-community center. It's not really a community center because it is so much under my control-it's still my house . . . But there is something about "by invitation", that makes special an invent . . . BILL: And all these events have worked beautifully. I felt so good about them: we've raised funds for people as well as community needs: a benefit for Nader, a benefit for Kaisen, a benefit for a child who had a dire medical need. We've had lots of speakers as well as dancing - and I intend to do it more and I intend to have smaller groups and maybe more challenging concepts. I'd like to have a specific night on a specific subject for teaching. And maybe a film is screened. It doesn't have to be a big party. It doesn't have to raise funds: it's purely for teaching. I |