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In the two hours before he heads off to work the graveyard shift at the power plant, Harry Dunn eats breakfast/dinner and hangs out with the masons who are erecting the "stackwall" structure he waited almost 30 years to build.

Originally, Dunn wanted to build a house using the technique, in which walls are fashioned out of firewood and mortar, but years passed and he never found the time or the place appropriate for it.

When he and his wife discussed building a garage at their house, just north of Craig on Highway 13, Mary Pat Dunn said it was a light-bulb moment when they thought of building the garage they needed now using the style that had fascinated Harry for decades.

Dunn fell in love with the design after he saw it in an article in a natural living magazine. There's a little debate over whether it was "Mother Earth News" or "Harrowsmith," but Dunn still has a copy of a 1976 "Harrowsmith" article espousing the virtues of the stackwall building technique.

Harry filled a 3-ring binder full of notes, articles, book excerpts and correspondence that discuss plans and methods for erecting a cordwood house.

The binder also has plans for a well that uses a windmill to pump water, along with solar energy and wood stoves.

Harry admits his style was "a little hippie" back then. Even now, he wears his graying hair in a ponytail, has a teepee in his yard and admits he doesn't watch television.

"I've always been a little out of the norm," Harry said.

His stackwall garage is the only such structure in Moffat County, and one of perhaps two in northwest Colorado.

But in Manitoba, Canada, the stackwall system got a footing in the 1970s when the engineers from the Northern Housing Committee at the University of Manitoba began investigating alternative housing.

One of the committee's prime objectives was "the development of housing which would be practical in extreme climates where energy and materials are not readily available and are, in any event, very expensive," according to "Stackwall: How to Build It" published by the committee.

The committee's leadership was "searching specifically for a form of housing which would be a viable alternative to the transplanted Californian bungalow in climates far too severe for its features."

Stackwall looked to be an ideal alternative, requiring more hard work than expertise, and using sawn logs and mortar for the bulk of the structure.

As the Northern Housing Committee puts it, the logs are "stacked firewood fashion and embedded in mortar."

In the early 1980s, Harry corresponded with professors at the university, gathering advice and documentation.

"I thought someday I'd build a house," Harry said. "I never got to build a house." As they formed tentative plans to build a garage, the Dunns decided they'd build it stackwall style.

Since the garage area is separate from their house, and prominently situated on their property, Harry said he wanted a structure that would be nice to look at.

"Aesthetically, it's very pleasing to us," Harry said. "We like the style."

"It fits in with the house better than a modern, steel-sided structure," said Mary Pat Dunn, who knows well her husband's passion for cordwood structures.

The Dunns' daughter, Elizabeth, said she wasn't too excited about the idea at first. "I thought it was gonna be really ugly, but I like it now," she said.

But Harry admits it wouldn't look as good if he hadn't hired some experts to build it.

"You could do it (yourself), but it wouldn't look as good as this unless you had masonry skills," Harry said.

The contract for the garage fell to Structures Unlimited, a masonry contractor owned by two locals who've been friends since their days at Moffat County High School -- Josh Jackson and James Kunkle.

They started out going door to door, looking for any kind of masonry work, including repairs. Almost ten years later, the friends' portfolio includes work on prestigious structures across Colorado, from monolithic resort facilities to cobblestone walls and rock floors that look like glass. They specialize in all the trowel trades, including brick, block, stone, concrete and stucco.

Mary Pat applauds them for taking on such a "strange project" they'd never done before.

Harry handed them his binder full of documentation, which Mary Pat jokingly refers to as his bible.

Jackson poured over the information and took to the house with a crew of four.

"We didn't change things except the installation process," Jackson said. "We found easier ways to put the mud in. We troweled it on -- laid it in more of a production fashion."

The book Harry had obtained from Manitoba was geared toward the layman, but Jackson and Kunkle adapted it to the methods used by journeyman masons.

Where the books recommended piling on the mortar by hand, Jackson and Kunkle troweled it on and then scraped away excess mortar between the logs, achieving a neat and more professional look.

In 12 days, with two masons and two tenders, Structures Unlimited erected the garage. They used 34 tons of sand, nine cords of wood, 70 to 80 bags of Portland mix, 40 bags of lime and 1,500 gallons of water. The garage can easily accommodate four vehicles, but Harry said he plans to put a wood shop in the back.

As Structures Unlimited was finishing up the project Thursday, they secured a top plate with J-bolts to anchor the roof system. Their work is done, but Harry will add the trusses, roof, doors and windows to complete the building.

It looks as solid as a fort, and with walls 18-inches thick, it has substantial insulation properties.

"I'd say the cost is comparable to a standard garage, except you have an R-value of 20 with the basic structure," Jackson said.

Jackson said he expects shrinkage of the logs to leave slight gaps between the mortar and the logs, a consequence of the logs absorbing moisture from the mortar and then drying out again. Initially, he said he was skeptical about that aspect because the building will require maintenance.

However, after the first year, when Harry fills the gaps with Log Jam, he expects it to be maintenance-free for a long time.

After noting that a 500-year-old cordwood structure was found in Greece, Harry said, "This will probably last longer than the house."

Jeremy Browning can be reached at 824-7031 or jbrowning@craigdailypress.com.