THE MAN CAVE of WHARTON ESHERICK

My sons and I took a cross-country trip, New York to San Francisco, by train last winter. They were particularly delighted by the sleeper cars, kitted out with bunk beds, one of which was pinned up to the wall during the day, toilet, sink, which tipped up so that its contents spilled down into the toilet, and tiny closet. Everything was snugly fitted like a jigsaw puzzle. It was cozy, satisfying, with  just enough space for what you needed for your trip. Theo was so pleased, when we first saw our berths, that he exclaimed that when he built his own house, one day, it would be designed the same way.

Memories of my sons' pleasure at this form of domestic architecture came to me when I recently visited the Wharton Esherick house in Pennsylvania. Or rather, the Wharton Esherick Man Cave, as I began to see it. It seems almost sacrilegious to say that Esherick was a furniture designer. He was a sculptor, who worked in wood; his work was as useful as it was beautiful, it brought art to craft and craft to art. It was completely sui generis; no one could possibly imitate the lyrical, organic lines of his style. He made everything from water jugs and chairs to stairs and buildings.  He might be considered the "godfather" of the Studio Furniture Movement.

Esherick began his work as a painter and illustrator. He ultimately carved into woodblocks the art for nine books.  He began to work in wood by carving frames for his paintings. By 1950, he was designing and making chairs, tables, bookcases, and fireplaces. He and his wife moved out of Philadelphia into the countryside near Paoli, which at the time was semi-rural, though it now feels suburban, of course. They lived in a farmhouse, and set aside a plot of land to grow vegetables--in case he couldn't sell his work.

He did. Clients returned year after year for yet another piece. His biggest commission, for the Curtis Bok house, in 1935, started as a bookcase and grew as organically as did his work. It eventually included four fireplaces, two desks, four sofas, wall and ceiling panelling, and more. (Curtis Bok was a lawyer and a judge, whose most famous opinion is an elegant piece of writing on obscenity in literature.)

In 1926, Esherick began working out of a studio that he designed inspired by local stone barns.  The walls are massive; they taper at the base, much the way a tree trunk does at the ground. The joints between the stones are deeply raked, so that the boulders are clearly visible. Eventually, Esherick spent more time up at the studio; he built a bed, just at window height, into an alcove so that he could lie and watch the woodland life, and the sun move across the sky. Ranged over the window are shelves to hold some books; his clothing fit neatly into deep drawers underneath the double bed. There is also seating around his bed. A wonderful place to entertain.

The bedroom is reached by a beautiful spiral staircase. A trap door ingeniously counterweighted would swing down to keep out the sawdust from the studio below. His family remained in the farmhouse below; Esherick had a house of his own. As the years went by, he added more rooms. A wooden structure contained a kitchen with a bath beneath it, and a room above for his son. Then, in the sixties, like all good homeowners, he decided to expand his kitchen, and added the curvilinear "silo", painting the concrete to resemble the autumnal woods.

You can take tours of the house; you are not supposed to take pictures, but as I arrived late, I didn't hear that instruction until I had already taken a few. The main room of the studio is filled with Esherick's work, which is beautiful. It is also whimsical. A stand for friends who were musicians is two-sided, so they could face one another. A shelf underneath was meant not for sheets of music, but to hold their drinks.

I found the place sort of enchanting. I could almost hear the artist, gathered with his friends in the woods, cooking, drinking, smoking, talking. Sherwood Anderson was a close pal. (And this reminds me that it is time to reread Winesburg, Ohio, a book that made a great impression on me as a much younger reader. Anderson had a nervous breakdown in 1912, left his wealthy wife and their three children to "escape from materialistic existence" and went off to pursue his creativity. But two years later he was back in Chicago, back in advertising, and back to marriage. So much for running away from home. I might add that he died of a perforated colon at the age of 64 while on a South American cruise, having swallowed the toothpick that speared the olive in his martini. Ever the optimist, he was, by then, on his fourth marriage.) A wonderful black and white photograph of Anderson hangs in the bedroom.

In the mid-fifties, Esherick asked his friend the architect Louis Kahn for help designing a proposed workshop. (I will resist a digression on Louis Kahn's social habits; just rent the excellent and very moving documentary made by his son, called My Architect.)

I had never even heard of this work, three hexagons with diamond-shaped roof planes; it is idiosyncratic, probably because Esherick tampered with Kahn's design during construction, putting a slight curve into walls that were meant to be straight.

I could almost smell the whiskey, and hear the fire crackling in the enormous stone hearth, and watch the sculptural pieces throw lively shadows on the walls. I could imagine how much fun it might have been to build your own, cozy, small house to suit your needs, your movements, your desires, framing views from your bed, wrapping a deck at exactly the place the breezes come off the woods, siting the outhouse to get the best view. You could stay up reading and talking as late as you wanted, without bothering a soul. I thought of how much my sons would have enjoyed the house. It just seemed so, well, man cave. Just the kind of sturdy place you would want to retreat to, bear-like, where you could be as messy as you wanted, but you would always know where everything was. And you would never have more than you needed.

Esherick lived in his house, and his house lived around him, changing as he grew older, until he died in 1970.