While people have many reasons for choosing their professions, most builders have probably followed in their fathers’, uncles’, or grandfathers’ footsteps. Peter got into his profession by way of a very different and circuitous route. His upbringing in Great Neck, New York, was oriented more to the cultural than it was to learning a trade. In his community, most people assumed that a young person would choose a career as he progressed through school and then would pursue its study in college. In his case, this assumption created a constant battle with his parents. They wanted him to become “well-rounded” by practicing the piano, doing his homework, learning tennis, playing baseball, and coming to dinner while it was still hot. They did not want him to spend every waking minute building model airplanes.
In later grade school, his best friend and he talked about why they had this hobby. His friend said it was because that was all he could do until he grew up and could fly the real airplanes. He would often build solid model copies of existing aircraft, whose only function was to sit on an exhibit pedestal. Peter, on the other hand, would only build model aircraft designed for the purpose of being flown. He had no idea at the time that he was following the motto of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor, Louis Sullivan: “Form follows function.”
By the time he was twelve, he was designing his own models instead of buying kits. (This even impressed his father, who considered model building to be the activity of a “ne’er do well.”) Why does one wish to design something newly, rather than utilize designs that already exist? To function better; to have one’s very own unique thing, maybe to show off!
Peter had no one to teach him any kind of craft work. His family believed that golf and riding were worthy recreational activities. He could have had all the lessons he wanted in those sports. At age fourteen, when he proposed that the same amount of money be spent on Piper Cub flying lessons, he might as well have suggested trapeze instruction! So he negotiated. He proposed that two dollars a week be held back from his allowance, and then at sixteen, he would have saved two hundred and eight dollars for flying lessons (in 1948 dollars) .
In the meantime, he had help from a special uncle, who in certain ways was more of a kindred spirit than his parents or friends. When his uncle came to visit, he would walk in the door, grab Peter, and whisper in his ear, “What model airplane won’t they buy you?” And then he would slip Peter the money.
Teen Years: Boat Building
One day in his fifteenth summer, Peter and his uncle were at a luncheonette with a magazine rack. His uncle said, “Go pick out a book.” Peter found a collection called, How to Build Twenty Boats, and life was never the same after that. He literally wore that book out. But he was totally on his own, trying to build a boat. He progressed as far as making full scale drawings on rolls of freezer paper, procured from a sympathetic mother.
That same year, he had received a small used wooden sailboat from his parents as a reward for remaining in Sunday School until confirmation. His big sixteenth summer approached (the get-to-stay-home, don’t-have-to-go-away-to-camp summer). He needed to have a water craft which was not dependent on the wind. The money he had saved for flying lessons purchased an outboard motor to power the wooden sailboat in all weather.
He moved on to the model building stage of the boat project. Then a friend bought a boat kit, and they built it together. These kits were a new thing on the market in 1950, probably in the first wave of what later became the do-it-yourself craze. To Peter, it seemed overwhelming to build a boat from scratch, so he bought a kit also.
This was when he got his first lesson in construction quality. The Chris Craft kit came with an adhesive which was allegedly proper for building a boat. However, after completing the boat, Peter discovered that the pounding of waves in rough water caused leaks to develop around all the screw holes! Research revealed that the adhesive supplied was all right for row boats, but a boat which had to endure more stress required a higher-quality product (at greater expense and more skill to use).
Next came his first lesson on product quality versus price. Two years later, he built a second boat from a kit, applying all that he had learned building the first one. To further reinforce it against the pounding of rough water, he decided to sheathe the hull, from the waterline down, with fiberglass. A new product in 1953, fiberglass was claimed to be applicable with several coats of acetate rather than as one total cured mass of resin. He chose that method, which required less money and was an easier application. But then one day, twelve miles out in Long Island Sound, the fiberglass formed a monster (two-foot by five-foot) blister on one side, and the boat had to be nursed home at the speed of a fast walk.
To this day, Peter avoids new “wonder” products, until they have been out in the field for several years. That policy averted a disaster in 1967, when he built his first house. It was all free-form curves with a roof that varied from zero to sixty degrees throughout the design. He investigated the new ridged, foam-on roofing, which was briefly touted throughout the country as a leakproof, fully insulating, one-piece blanket, for any size and shape. It just didn’t feel right though. It was a little soft, a little lumpy, and totally untried in the field. Peter decided to pass on it, even though a builder friend in Woodstock was using it to roof everything he built and was even using it as a wonder “craft” to coat the insides of barns to make houses out of them. A year later it was history. Aside from the fact that it was easily devastated by tree limbs and violent weather, a cubic foot of it was enough to asphyxiate the whole household in a fire. Yet ads for it had been carried in magazines like Architectural Record and Progressive Architecture!
(After months of agonizing over how he was going to sheathe this laminated free-form parabolic roof, Peter literally dreamt that he saw it covered in cedar shingles. This had simply not occurred to him! He actually had to develop new methods of application to pull it off.)
The Army and the Family Business
Then in 1957, Private Asher was sent to Europe. He had a rather idyllic two years, crew-chiefing Signal Corp aircraft in Stuttgart and going to Switzerland at every opportunity to ski. However, military service creates changes in mind and body, and his ideal of pursuing a career based on what he liked to do in life faded away. He went into agreement with peers and relatives who said, “Someday this will be all yours, and you’ll be well off.” After the Army, he went into the family textile business. The good news was that it was a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job. That left evenings and weekends free for boat building.
He did have two conflicts of interest though: skiing and dating. In fact his first engagement came apart over the other lady in his life — twelve feet long, five feet wide and able to both pull a water skier and be pulled by a trailer behind a classic MG. Peter designed and built that boat as an original concept to fill unusual requirements, and through it, became very familiar with the workings and potentials of woodcraft.
While people have many reasons for choosing their professions, most builders have probably followed in their fathers’, uncles’, or grandfathers’ footsteps. Peter got into his profession by way of a very different and circuitous route. His upbringing in Great Neck, New York, was oriented more to the cultural than it was to learning a trade. In his community, most people assumed that a young person would choose a career as he progressed through school and then would pursue its study in college. In his case, this assumption created a constant battle with his parents. They wanted him to become “well-rounded” by practicing the piano, doing his homework, learning tennis, playing baseball, and coming to dinner while it was still hot. They did not want him to spend every waking minute building model airplanes.
Then in 1957, Private Asher was sent to Europe. He had a rather idyllic two years, crew-chiefing Signal Corp aircraft in Stuttgart and going to Switzerland at every opportunity to ski. However, military service creates changes in mind and body, and his ideal of pursuing a career based on what he liked to do in life faded away. He went into agreement with peers and relatives who said, “Someday this will be all yours, and you’ll be well off.” After the Army, he went into the family textile business. The good news was that it was a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job. That left evenings and weekends free for boat building.