Flash to the past

It was eleven years ago I got a call to fly to Mall of America in Minnesota to look at a space for an adventure golf. It was on the third floor of the mall. Our meetings were short, as decisions were swift. I flew home the next day. Two weeks later I flew down once more with the complete building plans in hand and as before, in meetings just as brief, the plans were approved. The golf needed to be finished in 100 days. It was extremely ambitious! We partnered with a local faux rock company to do all of the onsite work including a mountain - no small task! Our team would build all of the features and signs in our studio at home and then ship them down for the install. My job on site was only to supervise and I would do this in short six visits. 

We built enough features and signs to fill two large semi trailers. Each time we loaded and sent the trailer down the road and then I would pack my suitcase and fly to meet the load at the other end. I would supervise the unload, lift to the third floor and the installation the next day... then fly home to build more. It was exciting to say the least! Moose Mountain Adventure Golf opened on schedule and still operates to this day.

How do you balance a ship on a wall? David knows.

Peter had a grin on his face the whole time the crew was building the giant head a few weeks ago. Now that grin has been replaced by an even bigger smile as he begins work on the giant ship which will protrude from the tower of the North Star suite. Guests who stay in this luxurious suite will sleep in the ornate stern of the ship.

We started with the concept drawings, then went on to the scale model where we worked out many of the details. Those steps were relatively easy and quick. It took a few tries before we worked out all the critical engineering. Apparently, permanently and safely balancing the full sized hull of a ship on top of a eight foot tall concrete wall is no easy task. But thankfully, our structural engineer, David figured out all of the math (imagine those calculations!) and we received the structural drawings in due course. It sure is good to have an engineer who gets what we do! 

Now we have begun the actual building of the ship. We first cut out the thick steel plates which will define the waterline of the ship. This was built in two layers which are bolted together. The upper layer will be the walls of the ship. The lower will be the floor of the suite and the hull. We first assembled these layers on the floor, making sure everything was nice and square. Then we flipped those two giant assemblies and are now building the hull structure upside down. There is a tremendous amount of fitting, cutting and welding in this stage. Everything has to one hand fit one piece at a time because each piece is unique to allow for the curved and tapering shape of the hull. Once this main structure is finished we can go on to the hand formed hull pencil rod  armature which will proceed a whole lot quicker. Then we will hand sculpt the timbers and planks using fibreglass reinforced concrete. This is what guests will see. All of the carefully fit and welded steel structure will be hidden inside, never to be seen again.

Almost time...

Sharp lookouts who have driven by the Hazelnut Inn property have probably noticed a bunch of new surveyor's pegs and flags in the last week. The pegs are the lay out for the locations of the buildings that are soon to begin. Things are about to change in a big way as the ground preparations begin later this week. The septic and drainage fields will be the first to be installed. The organic soil will be then removed from under the building site and will be replaced with coarse engineered gravel. All of this work needs to be done in order to get ready for the building which is due to start shortly thereafter. It's going to be exciting!