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by John Markoff
www.iht.com Mazor is one of the architects of the information age, one of three Intel engineers who invented the microprocessor, the nerve center for personal computers as well as refrigerators. So it was not surprising that when Mazor turned his hand to building a vacation house, his approach would be inventive.
The results of his experiment can be seen in the rolling countryside on the outskirts of Ashland, Oregon, where he has finished building the first two-thirds of a French château, modeled on a 17th-century structure in Normandy. Not being a purist, Mazor, 63, gave the project, which will ultimately cost about $2 million, or about €1.5 million, all the pragmatic earmarks of an engineer.
For example, the house is built not of stone and plaster but largely of polystyrene blocks reinforced with concrete. Much of its decorative trim has been fashioned from extruded plastic foam, and six of the ornate window surrounds on the third floor are made of Corian, a material widely used in kitchen countertops.
The materials fit with Mazor's belief that houses should be affordable and modular. Although building with plastic foam is more expensive than building with wood and similar in cost to cinder block or brick, the blocks are larger, do not need to be insulated and present advantages.
Mazor, who is retired, sketched his château for three years, recording details of buildings he admired from business and pleasure trips to France. He hit upon the idea of building with foam in Japan when he noticed fast-food containers in a Tokyo alley and began to think about its uses. Later he discovered insulated concrete forms.
Mazor's architect, Elvin Spurling, translated his sketches into architectural renderings. They collaborated, sending sketches and specifications back and forth by e-mail.
The construction of the château began in 2000. The building, when completed, will be 152 feet wide and 16 feet deep, or about 46 meters wide and 5 meters deep, and it will allow for six bedrooms, a music room and a gym. There will be a tower at each end, one designed to house two cars, the other a kitchen and dining room.
Mazor's romance with all things French began in French class in high school in San Francisco in the 1950s. The château as an architectural form began as a fortified building that could be used to defend an entire village. It was not unusual for châteaux to be surrounded by moats, so Mazor added a bridge across a small stream on his 25-acre, or 10-hectare, estate, which sits on the edge of Ashland, a city of 24,000 known for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
His land, however, feels remote, and his house is increasingly surrounded by the red oaks, birches, poplars and pines that he planted.
"I like châteaux, but when you think of Oregon, you don't think châteaux," he said on a sunny afternoon on the deck behind his California home, a classic contemporary, where he lives with his wife, Maurine. "So I found an isolated area where we aren't in people's faces and we have privacy."
Mazor puzzled for a number of years over the narrow footprints for châteaux, which present a thorny challenge in laying out rooms. But after many experiments with pencil and graph paper, he decided to adhere to the classic proportions.
In 1997 an article in Architectural Digest about a Normandy château caught his eye. He wrote to the owner, a marquis, to ask if he could visit. On receiving no for an answer, he and his wife flew to Normandy and called again when they were about half an hour from the château.
The marquis answered the phone and told them they were welcome to come by and take photographs. As Mazor wandered the grounds, he observed that the building had been created in stages.
The link between architecture and computer design seemed obvious to Mazor. Computer design has increasingly moved to a higher level of abstraction, and computer architects now work by assembling components like Legos. And so it was fitting that when the Mazor château was under construction, the work crew displayed a Lego banner high above the ground.
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