One Big Sculpture

Mariah Nielson

Our family home is nestled in a densely wooded ridge above Inverness, California, a small town 50 miles north of San Francisco. Over the course of decades of work, this construction became my father, JB Blunk’s, most important creation. Built between 1959 and 1962, with salvaged materials from nearby beaches, forests and scrapyards, the house is a Gesamtkunstwerk, in that JB and his first wife, Nancy Waite, made every single thing—from the doors to the furniture to the ceramic tableware. In a conversation from 1977 with Olivia H. Emery for her book, Gentle Revolution, Blunk said: ‘I consider this whole place—house, studio, fruit trees, vegetable garden and chickens—one big sculpture.’

Gifted an acre of land by their friends and patrons Gordon Onlsow Ford and Jacqueline Johnson, JB and Nancy began work on their home. ‘We started building our house in 1959, when our second son, Rufus, was an infant,’ recalled Nancy. ‘Gordon had told us we could choose our own site. We needed a garden, and so wanted the warmth and light of a southern exposure. I remember it was all dirt roads and fallen logs crisscrossing the land. We hiked around and found this area that was a little bit of a knoll.’ The home was constructed on the edge of this knoll, overlooking the Inverness Ridge, and with Tomales Bay and Black Mountain in the distance. Nancy cultivated a garden and raised chickens for the family, and JB’s studio included a barn for his wife’s horses. Stones from an old quarry that sat next to their water system were loaded into the back of Gordon’s Land Rover and used to build the entry wall. 

The couple had very little money when construction began, and so the structures were slowly pieced together over the years. The shape of the house was determined by the length and width of reclaimed timbers and views were thoughtfully framed by windows collected from local salvage yards and dismantled barns. The layers of custom and idiosyncratic features exemplify JB’s playfulness and ingenuity: the hand carved bathroom sink made from a single piece of cypress; the ‘scrap wall’ which is a puzzle of redwood falloffs from The Planet—JB relished details in his home that were both functional design features and inspired artworks. The house also served as a backdrop for the presentation of his personal collection. Objects JB acquired during travels to South America, Japan and Indonesia were displayed alongside his own work with paintings and sculptures made by close friends. And all of these things were arranged and rearranged in the space for decades.

The building is a living sculpture, a masterpiece, a home, a place that has experienced countless events and changes in its 60 years. It has witnessed the childhoods of my brothers, Bruno and Rufus, Nancy’s departure, my mother Christine Nielson’s arrival, my birth, and my father’s death. Most recently, the house became a vibrant artist residency. The JB Blunk Residency hosted 22 artists who in turn came to live in the home and work in the studio. The place is a testament to creative resourcefulness and sustainability and remains a constant work in progress, not a precious work of art. As Emery described, ‘JB’s way of living is conscious, but not self-conscious...the doing is all the action.’

Excerpt from JB Blunk