“If you can dream it, we can build it.” It was that phrase on the website of LaRock Property Maintenance that prompted Greg Trulson, co-owner of Moose Meadow Lodge in Duxbury to reach out to Ted LaRock about an idea he had for replacing wooden steps at the lodge with stone steps.
Little did either of them know that the contact would lead to a two-year iterative process featuring massive slabs of granite, elaborately crafted cast-iron rails, and a waterfall crafted from boulders harvested from the property.
Trulson, who owns the lodge with his husband Willie Docto, was looking for the right person to replace the worn and weathered wooden steps leading from the driveway to the upper floor of the lodge.
IT SAYS THAT?
LaRock and his wife Penny LaRock offer stonework, landscaping, winter snow management, and multiple other services through their Warren business.
“I combed his website and that sentence caught my eye. I thought that was a pretty strong statement and at a minimum, I wanted to meet him. Within five minutes of meeting, I told him that that sentence on the website caught my eye and he said, ‘it says that?’”
“Then he said he was going home to find out what else was on there!” Trulson recalled.
That was the start of a project that stretched from mid 2021 until this fall. Having made the decision to replace the steps with stone, Trulson and LaRock worked with a structural engineer on how to meet code on the steps -which turned out to be pouring steps and facing them with granite – until LaRock suggested that the concrete be poured in forms rather than as a solid piece of work.
NEW SPACE
That created a fun storm-cellar like space for storage and/or escaping a tornado underneath the steps that will be finished with handcrafted doors faced in stone. The new cement forms featured 16-inch treads versus the former 10-inch treads which meant the stairs curved out and extended further into the lawn which created a new space between the stairs and the lodge.
“I kept thinking we’ve got to do something special here and kept coming back to ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a waterfall coming out of a stone in this space. We considered just planting but nothing else made sense,” Trulson said.
“After the engineer got done Greg asked if I’d ever done a waterfall and I had not. Greg had another person he’d worked with who was going to put in the water feature and asked if I minded working with him. I said I’d love to. I wanted to see how it works,” LaRock said.
STAGE THE ROCKS
That contractor had something else in mind that was more like a fountain and Trulson and Docto wanted something more organic that was like water running off a ledge.
Trulson took his ATV around the 86-acres of the property searching for rocks that might work for a waterfall and LaRock and his crew used an excavator to stage the rocks near the steps.
Ultimately that contractor was unable to undertake the job which led Trulson to ask LaRock if he wanted to take on the waterfall project as well.
“I did. I’d go home and do a little research. I had a concept but learned that with this type of waterfall you have to do a mockup so you really want to start with your top rock and work down so you get how the water will flow, but you can’t because you have to start from the bottom and work up. That meant we set the first and second stones and then took it apart so readjust the bottom stone so that it looked right, then re-set the second stone, checked the water and took it back apart before we got it right,” LaRock explained.
HEART-SHAPED STONE
The result is a waterfall that sounds very much like a stream flowing in the woods. The two boulders that make up the waterfall are nestled together in such a way that it looks like the hand of nature. Behind and to the right of the waterfall is a heart-shaped stone that the LaRock crew found among the rocks, stones and slabs piled up in the work area.
The stairs curve around the waterfall with irregularly-shaped sentinel stones defining the end of every few steps. The sentinel stones add color and curves to the 90-degree angles of the steps.
“We were packing up one day and I had this idea and told Willie and Greg that I wanted to run something by them. I started talking about how the steps are all straight lines and angles and said the sentinel stones would be round and natural. I barely finished the sentence before Willie said that he loved it,” LaRock said.
CUSTOM RAILINGS
The stairs descend to a landing made from one slab of granite found in Barre. They are framed by the custom railings made and installed on site by Chris Eaton of Fly Wheel and Ben Cheney. The 7-foot-wide, 12-foot-long granite slab was delivered on a flatbed and lifted with a crane several times until the placement was right.
Trulson said that a guest arrived this fall and was greeted at the top of the new stairs, not having noticed that the steps were new.
“Then he asked me if we’d added the water feature and I asked if he noticed anything else,” Trulson recalled, noting that he told the guest the steps and railings were new and the guest asked what had been there before.
“My response to that was that the steps, stonework and railings fit perfectly with the lodge,” LaRock added.
