Alamos House Portal Project

Beginning at the beginning, we wanted more outdoor living space. The portal in the central courtyard was fairly functional but had several issues. To begin with, the columns themselves were starting to crumble. Repair was an option but it seemed like that would just be an ongoing process. Replacement was the only choice. The roof tiles were damaged and again repair and replacement of the broken tiles would be difficult. Also, because the portal itself was so narrow, it was hard to find a dry spot when the rains came and even more difficult to stay in the shade on the sunny days.

One of the first steps was to remove the tile a separate the reusable from the broken pieces. We're trying to recycle as much of the material as possible. Although the tile won't be incorporated into the new portal we will sell or trade for other supplies. The placas and the vegas will be set aside and reused.

One of the first surprises during "deconstruction" was that the placas which are normally site poured and the width of a single pair of vegas were actually double that size. Good news for structural integrity, bad news for the guys who had to handle the 200lb. slabs.

Easier to nibble away at the concrete and expose the reusable rebar than trying to cut and lower intact.

The forms are hand made on site. As the arches are poured the forms will be disassembled and the bricks will be used in the construction of the rest of the portal.

We were assured that this type of palm had a very shallow root system. This fifty year old specimen hadn't read the books. A 40" root ball was what we ended up with. Very heavy with years of compacted, calcium encrusted soil.

You just keep adding bodies until you reach a balance between dead weight and live action. See Bella at right asking who's going to clean the floor :0)

Taking advantage of a natural sweep in the palm, we set it to peek around the corner of the front portal allowing planting to the side and below.

Now we'll see how well this old girl took her abuse.

The main beam is 38 feet long. In order to carry the roof load over that distance each half of the beam has a metal bridgework welded to the inside then the two halves are welded together. Later on they will be finished so that there is no exposed seam.