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A somewhat surprising but befitting structure has popped up in Pleasant Grove recently. A stained Western Cedar saw mill and water wheel now decorate Duane and Judy Atkinson’s one-acre lot on the east end of Grove Creek Drive.
Tucked just 20 yards off the road, the 22-foot-tall mill and 12-foot-tall pioneer-period wheel surprise passers-by with a jolt of "What is that doing here?" Well, it's not as old as it looks. Retired dentist Duane Atkinson wanted to build a giant wooden water wheel by hand, on his property, and without any professional help. So he researched how he wanted it to look from Internet pictures, and that was the extent of his research. It all started with the idea of building the wheel. Atkinson started construction on the mill in April of 2007 and then started on the wheel a year later. He finished the 1,000-pound, nine-spoke wheel in just four months. "I built the building so I would have someplace to put the wheel," he says. It has been quite the project. Atkinson has had no formal construction or design training and has sought no professional contract help for the mill and wheel's construction, except for the iron bracket work spread throughout the wheel and the crane needed to hoist it into position. "It's never been a plan, I just happen to keep adding on," he said. With no formal plan, Atkinson simply but painstakingly builds and builds and builds. He says if it works, he'll keep it; if doesn't work, he'll tear it down and find a better way to build it. "I made a lot of mistakes, but that's where all the fun is," says Atkinson. In the cool shade of an almond tree and under the shadow of the mill, Atkinson has spent most summer and fall mornings cutting wood, drilling holes, bolting nuts, mixing concrete and otherwise bringing his imagination to life. The 66-year-old Pleasant Grove native has enjoyed the fruits of trading in his dental drill for a DeWalt. "I liked being a dentist, but it's nice now to work on something big," says Atkinson, who has spent the last two summers drilling into 6-inch timber beams with his 2-foot-long, half-inch-thick high-powered drill bit -- a bit of a trade-off from working in the confines of a person's mouth for 35 years. Atkinson has had to learn all the skills necessary for his mill and wheel on his own. If he had to build a wall he learned how to do it. If he had to set a roof he learned how to do it. If he had to fit nine spokes on a circular mill he learned how to do it. "Just because I'm retired, that doesn't mean I can't learn new skills," he says. "I didn't know how to make windows so I spent the winter learning how to make windows." Atkinson says that's how the pioneers learned to build things and wants to experience this project just as they would have. He's got the steel framework ready for a neighboring barn and has an idea of how he wants it built, but will see exactly how it will turn out as he starts construction. "This turned out to be my passion," says Atkinson, who will have to leave his big projects to serve an LDS mission with his wife within the next year. |
