"Barn Again"
Occidental Builder Recycles Old Growth Redwood From Aging Barns and Coops

by George Snyder
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Friday, July 30, 2004

Wood-loving bugs like to spend their time in old barns and chicken shacks eating away at the aging boards, destroying them from the inside out. Michael "Bug" Deakin, on the other hand, spends his time in old barns and chicken shacks doing just the opposite.

"I'd rather save these old guys," said the 55-year-old Occidental builder, designer and owner of Heritage Salvage, a recycling enterprise he founded six months ago. "But if I can't do that, I try to recycle them."

To Deakin the words "heritage" and "salvage" go hand in hand, along with the dozens of aging barns and chicken coops still dotting southern Sonoma County. The barns are remnants of the 1930s, '40s and '50s when the combined efforts of tens of thousands of chickens made Petaluma and its environs the "Egg Capital of the World." Although many are long gone, dozens remain, leaning against the oak-studded hillsides like arthritic old men.

Recently, Deakin pulled at a colorful, lichen-encrusted board on an old 20-by-60-foot chicken shack he was inspecting near Cotati.

"A lot of people just tear these things down and just haul the wood away to the dump," he said. "I'm here to save what we can of the old wood, one way or the other."

The property's new owners planned to turn the barn into a greenhouse, but discovered the cost would be too high. Deakin was there to salvage the wood.

"Look at this," he continued. "This is worthy wood, old-growth redwood. You just don't find this stuff anymore. Why cut down a redwood tree when you can get this great wood with just a little effort and ingenuity?"

Deakin, a native of Nelson, British Columbia, has been building homes and other structures around Sonoma County for 17 years. One of his more notable projects was a Tuscan-style garage in Occidental for a small fleet of automobiles belonging to a member of the Theriot family, the former owners of The Chronicle.

He also built sets in Hollywood for stars, including Harrison Ford, before moving north to Sonoma County.

"That's before he got famous," Deakin added by way of modesty.

Deakin's nickname, "The Bug Man" or just "Bug," which he uses on his business cards, came from a friend's child who used to collect insects in a jar with Deakin while he worked in his garden.

"Every time they passed my mailbox after that, the little girl would say 'There's the Bug Man's House,' " said Deakin. "I kinda liked the name."

One of nine siblings, Deakin said he followed his father, Paul, around as a child learning the tools and the tricks of how to build and repair things.

"My dad was Mr. Fixit," Deakin said. "He had a lot of ingenuity in fixing and building. As a kid I was always interested in old and rusty things, no matter what."

It was after he moved north into redwood country and started working on homes that Deakin became interested in recycling old barn wood.

Most of the old wood Deakin recycles is virgin redwood milled around the turn of the century from the old-growth redwood groves that once blanketed the hills of the North Coast.

"The more I looked at it," Deakin said, "the more I realized this old wood is an important resource, one you can't easily find anymore. Then the more I thought about it, I realized it was a shame to just let this wood just be dumped in a landfill or thrown away.

"Old redwood is wonderful. The new stuff is no good, not really. I can jump on an old 1-by-4-inch board and it won't break, it's so strong. Try that on a new board. So what's the point of cutting down a magnificent 300-foot tree when you can get better wood from these old barns by recycling?"

The practical side of recycling isn't the only reason Deakin said he started his company.

"There are also spiritual reasons for me starting Heritage Salvage," he said.

One major influence, he said, was the lingering memory of Chief Dan George, head of the Salish Band of Burret Inlet, British Columbia. Born in 1899 and given the name Geswanouth Slahoot, Chief Dan George died in 1981 after appearing in films including "Little Big Man" and the Clint Eastwood film "Outlaw Josey Wales."

"They call Indian people the First Nation people in Canada," said Deakin. "I got to meet him when I was younger and before he was in the movies when I used to drive him around in North Vancouver. He kept telling me that we didn't inherit the land from our ancestors; we are borrowing it from our children. I've never forgotten that."

Deakin said with that in mind, he began to regard the old growth redwoods as "ancestors," or imperiled ancestors.

"Look," he said, "in 1850 we had 2 million acres of old-growth redwood. Now we have about 85,000 acres. That's down 96 percent in 150 years. We can't forget what trees do here for us on this planet, our Mother. And we're trashing it. What got me going is that everyone was talking about vanishing resources. The only thing gone is the source. The resource lies in recycling. If we slow down cutting redwoods, maybe in 500 years we'll have old growth again."

Meanwhile, in the course of roaming the countryside in his pickup scouting for sources of wood, Deakin also kept encountering long-time residents on the Marin and Sonoma county ranches and farms he visited.

"It seemed like every time I start working on a barn, an old-timer came out to talk about how it used to be and of all the old memories they have of the places they lived in so long," he said. "I kind of got the idea of not only starting a business that recycles wood but also recycles the history of the area. That's how I got the idea to start Heritage Salvage, saving the heritage of Sonoma County plus saving trees."

The old wood Deakin gathers is sorted, labeled and stacked in neat piles in and around his headquarters, located, naturally, in a renovated chicken barn on Petaluma's western outskirts.

He also keeps a supply of the recycled wood at a friend's business a few miles away.

"Pat Pinkney at Specialty Stone was the first person to let me store my wood at his yard, plus he got me my first customers," said Deakin. "I owe him for a lot."

In addition to stacks of wood -- some, for example, from the recent renovation of St. Phillips Catholic Church in Occidental, another stack from a giant, 1890s pickle barrel -- the renovated barn houses newly created tables and other furniture Deakin fashioned from recycled wood. He also pointed out an 1888-era flagpole he found in Bodega Bay.

"I'm going to do something with that," he said.

Riding around with Deakin is an education in a movable swap meet.

"You ride around with me, you start looking at old chicken shacks and not the countryside anymore," he said. "It can ruin it for just looking at the scenery."

Sometimes Deakin pays for the old wood; sometimes he gets it free by offering to take a sagging building down for the wood when the owner would have to pay to have it demolished anyway. Some, particularly ranchers, let him cherry-pick the wood from barns they've already demolished before they bury the wood as compost. Others, believing in the idea of recycling, call him to offer old buildings out of the goodness of their heart.

In one instance, a Rohnert Park woman called to let him know that in the course of remodeling her home, she discovered the flooring had come from an old sailboat and included special woods like teak and mahogany.

Deakin was on the scene in short order after asking the contractor to set aside the flooring instead of throwing it into a dumpster.

"I'm totally enamored of old wood and beams and how they look. It's the resourcefulness of recycling and creation of making something beautiful out of something someone has discarded that I like," he said.

Wood, however, isn't the only resource Deakin, who has written an as-yet- unpublished children's book, would like to salvage. The other is youths in trouble.

"I've got the perfect place for disadvantaged kids to work," he said. "They get to tear stuff down, yet it's for a good cause and a way for them to earn some money under good supervision."

Deakin said he is considering expanding Heritage Salvage into a vehicle where salvaged woods are turned into usable products, such as furniture, which could then be sold to help kids in trouble. He is also considering creating a Heritage Salvage design service encouraging the use of recycled material in the construction of new homes.

"We could have something like the Heritage Furniture Foundation where the kids could learn to make furniture from the recycled wood and pick up some building skills they can pull out of their back pocket when they want to work, " he said.

Recently, Deakin contacted the People Services Center in Petaluma, a social services agency, about his ideas, including a possible space in the agency where such furniture could be sold by developmentally impaired youths, for example.

"I asked them if they had any at-risk kids, and if they could use any help," he said.

"They just laughed and told me they were really glad to hear from me," Deakin added. "I think we've got a winner."