TERRA SÁVIA ART

Ben Frey is a rescuer of wood. Blackberry patches, burn piles and bone yards are favorite scouting grounds for rescue, to bring wood back to useful life, recreated into towers, tasting rooms, gates, furniture, bird houses and other items. Ben is the 10th of 12 children, and both parents were doctors. He began building with recycled materials at age eight when he helped his father and older brothers tear down Garrett Winery in Ukiah, California, to use the wood to build their own winery on the family ranch. His inspiration came from his father who converted a barn into their rustic house that included bits and pieces left over from table factories, Mendocino State Hospital, and burnt out redwood and oak stump and log furniture. At home and the winery nothing was purchased new, but was re-fabricated from old wineries, buildings and equipment.

Ben has spent 30 years rebuilding barns, wineries and old houses, and making rustic furniture and gates, transforming and reinterpreting the old, worn wood back into vital elements in the landscape.

He worked on the Bonterra ranch in the McNab valley, Jeriko Winery in Hopland, as well as building and remodeling many houses.

In 2003, 2005 and 2007, 2009 he built rustic furniture, towers and barns for gold medal winning gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show in London and the World Garden Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan.

He believes wood is a still living entity that can be transformed from one purpose into another functional element that expresses its organic past as a tree and its journey through the years with weather, lichen, livestock, woodpeckers and even rodents. He lives with his wife and their four dogs in a rustic house he built in Hopland, California and loves to spend time with their three grown children and grandson.