The Old Tinney Place

I purchased the 28 acre property known as the “Old Tinney place”, in the Spring of 1978.
 The house was unoccupied at the time and had been so for about 60 years, the locals say. 
It was built around 1880 and was one of the 6 original homes built in the area by Mormon 
settlers, returning from several years of living on the Mexican border. 

The place had been used as a barn and there was over 4 feet of manure needing to be 
cleaned out. After this was done, I was pleased to find that the home contained very nice 
9 foot tall ceilings. There were around eight or ten layers of various plasters and wall 
papers covering the original double thick rock walls, including newspapers from around 
1918. After scraping the walls and returning to the natural rock, I insulated and plastered 
the north and west walls. Some of the other walls are plastered and on others I just left 
the original rock exposed. There were no doors or windows, plumbing or electricity. The 
roof was mostly missing, as was the top three feet of the west stone wall, which had 
tumbled over 20 feet down into the pasture below.

I began this project by erecting permanent post and beam construction on the lower walls, 
to insure the buildings future stability, planning to plaster this detail into the overall 
design. Next, I erected scaffolding and retrieved and replaced the missing rock on the 
west wall. After that, I repaired all the bad roof joists, laid new plywood on the entire 
roof and re-roofed the entire structure.

For the lower portion, I laid bricks in sand for the floor, placing copper pipes underneath 
for future radiant heat application. I built a sunken bathroom, whose ceiling towers over 
30 feet to a operable skylight coming out of the roof, and is entirely paneled in red 
cedar. A oak treaded staircase with a landing opening to a deck, leads to the upper 
bedrooms, surrounding this bathroom tower. 


All of the kitchen cabinetry was done in local red cedar, milled at the site. The original 
fireplace in the kitchen was revamped with a cedar mantel, and is a superior heater. 
All of the ceilings were done in T&G bleached white aspen, as were the wainscoting on 
the stairway as well as the entire bedroom loft area. The living areas have adobe banco 
seating built into the corner post and beams. All windows throughout the house are 
thermo pane. There are 10 skylights in the house. All of the above work took about 
two or three years to complete. 

Once I was living  in the house I began the expansion. First I added a 
shop/studio/laundry room/mud entry along the entire east wall (8 feet wide x 30 feet 
long). The entire wall is exposed rock. There is a large closet with hanging space as 
well as a triple set of upper shelving. There is a work bench, brick floors, with the 
exterior walls done in insulated board and bats, and the interior done in rough cut 
1x8 in a herringbone pattern.

Next I built a two story affair on the south end of the original structure. The downstairs 
is a sun room, with natural juniper lintels and built in couch bancos, some containing 
storage inside, also with brick floors…while the upper portion is a sunny bedroom, 
all paneled in bleached white T & G pine. 

Finally, I built a small library (about 8 feet wide x 14 feet long) along the west 
side of the house, with an entry from both the sunroom and the living room. It is 
plastered with T & G bleached white pine ceiling, also containing a unique set of 
built in bookshelves, again using a natural cedar lintel

This second phase of additions was done over a six or seven year period, with constant 
upgrades along the way, including three fully lined cedar closets, stainless steer 
stove and oven, new dishwasher and fridge. During the entire period of construction, 
and beyond, I have been building rock walls and terraces, surrounding the property, 
including a completely enclosed rock-walled flagstoned courtyard, outside of the 
south facing sunroom, with a rock stairway leading to the gardens, containing an 
orchard with 18 fruit trees.

I dammed and built a seasonal pond, located in the beautiful canyon on the northwest 
corner of the property.