P.O. Box 2293 - Carefree, AZ   85377-2293

 





Minding A Sacred Place
by Sunnie Empie
Photography by Hart W. Empie

The widely acclaimed Boulder House, designed by Charles F. Johnson around, over, and under the enormous outcrop of weathered granite, was first featured on the cover of Architectural Digest. Design credit must also be given to Nature, as the character of the house derives from the natural features of the boulders - voluminous masses - some tilted, some crevassed and variously spaced.

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Windows into another time and place opened slowly to reveal that these boulders sheltered Stone Age hunters and gatherers. Daggers of sunlight interact with circle and spiral petroglyphs to mark equinox and winter and summer solstice. Bas-relief vulvaform petroglyphs reflect the same prehistoric iconography that arose spontaneously worldwide in veneration of Nature.

Minding A Sacred Place is 210 pages, 10.08" w. x 12.32 h. x .97", with 150 four-color photographs, captions, bibliography, index, and Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Boulder House Publishers, 2001. The stunning jacket is matte finish with embossed varnished image and embossed lettering. ISBN 1-931025-03-7

Contents:
  Part I - A Sense of Place (click)
  Part II - Creating Natural Architecture (click)
  Part III - Entering a Sacred Space (click)

What they have said:
"You are very daring.  Your house still haunts me.  It's by far the best use of rocks as dwelling in the world." - Philip Johnson, American Architect

"These are very generous landscapes - once tribal and sometimes mythic; land thought to possess a resident spirit." - Joseph Giovannini, Architectural Digest, February 1983. - "The architect and owners respected and sensed the site; they preserved it.  The site remains a mystery, a discovery, an activity - and the central meaning of the Empie home."

"With all the power they contained, rocks were frequently chosen as places for worship.  The power in the rocks is evident at the Empie site.  The intent of the makers of the petroglyphs is clear - they wanted them associated with the power." - Lawrence Loendorf, Research Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, New Mexico State University

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P.O. Box 2293 - Carefree, AZ   85377-2293