The masterful stonework of artist Lew French.
Every step of the way on the road to Tiberias, from the bottom of Israel’s Mount Tabor to the very top, I had my eye out for the perfect rock as a souvenir—not only of the hike but of my high school graduation summer stay at the adjoining kibbutz Endor. Once found, it would join the rocks I had gathered from the top of Masada, the Holy Way in Jerusalem and the small sliver of a pebble that I had retrieved from the road leading up to the Western Wall.
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The stonework of Lew French, whose arrangements are the subject of the book Stone by Design.
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Stones, rocks and boulders absolutely captivate me. Every time a Hudson River painting that depicts rocks comes up for auction, I wish I could give it a home. To have been with the great Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, pursuing the divine in the stones he found in Mongolia during the first half of the 20th century, would have been the ultimate travel experience. When I bought land north of New York City in Dutchess County, I did so because it was crisscrossed with stone walls, some of which are six feet wide.
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A trio of installations for houses on Martha’s Vineyard, where French does most of his work.
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Walking along my walls in the village of Millbrook, I always think of Robert Frost’s line, “Good fences make good neighbors.” And even though stone walls came to symbolize the destruction of a pristine American wilderness and foreshadowed the epic grazing and farming conflicts of the American West, for me they were benign objects of affection, for in the Northeast, new-growth forest had long ago replaced productive farmland.
Stonework is to the garden what moldings and baseboards are to the well-appointed room. Once, when I met one of the heads of the Bricklayers Union, I mentioned how much I would love to build a brick wall. She looked taken aback. “If Winston Churchill could do it,” I said, “so could I.” Ten years ago I hired Timothy Corscadden, now a vice president of my company, in large part because he and his father had worked as stonemasons, a most noble and ancient pursuit.
Lew French, whose work is featured here, is the direct heir to the mostly anonymous stone artists who built the world’s great pyramids, temples and monuments. Whether a small cottage, a meandering path or a multistone sculpture, the virtuoso is present in everything he does. In the book Stone By Design: The Artistry of Lew French (Gibbs Smith), French notes: “Stone left in its natural shape has a power and drama that is not only seen but also felt.” Of particular appeal are his hearths. “A stone fireplace is the focal point of the home,” he writes. “No other architectural feature makes as dynamic a visual statement as stonework.”
Many years ago, during a holiday on the remote island of Patmos, where John the Divine is believed to have envisioned the Apocalypse, I found a noteworthy stone on a rocky shore below the towering cliffs, a souvenir of the fire and brimstone of an ancient eruption. There on its oval surface was the image of the universe, if not a vast galaxy. A friend, Dani Pariser, and I went to great lengths in choppy seas to float the great stone back to Captain Iannis’ fishing boat. On my way back to New York at the Athens airport check-in, the agent commented that I must have stones in my luggage.
“No,” I replied. “The universe.”
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