Living Rock Studios struggles to survive as a faith-based roadside attraction
Article by
JAMIE HALE
The Oregonian/OregonLive
For a solid decade, over countless thousands of hours, Howard B. Taylor toiled away on a two-story building made of stone, driven ragged by tireless passion and divine inspiration.
The end result is Taylor’s incredible legacy: The Living Rock Studios, a roadside attraction between Eugene and Corvallis that has awed visitors for 33 years, but today simply struggles to survive.
After Taylor’s death in 1996, his three daughters took joint ownership of the attraction, and while each now has grown children of her own, none of them is interested in taking over. That’s left the women – who have all suffered serious health issues in recent years – scrambling to find a way to preserve and protect their father’s legacy.
And when it comes to legacies, few are as impressive as his. Built out of locally harvested stones, crystals and petrified wood, The Living Rock Studios is two stories of meticulous, beautiful stonework, all built around Taylor’s seven biblically themed pieces of art, made entirely of thinly sliced geodes.
It’s a love letter to Oregon geology, a testament to Taylor’s singular artistic vision, and a memorial to his family’s strong Christian faith.
“That was a faith walk for him,” Penny Mackey, his youngest daughter, said of the project. “This was God-inspired. Dad saw the vision of the building, then built it.”
Taylor’s family came from a long line of non-denominational Christians, she said, immigrating to the United States from Europe in search of religious freedom, landing in the Willamette Valley in 1952. Taylor supported his family by working as a surveyor and rock mason, before suffering three strokes and a heart attack in 1964.
His long recovery was aided by a newfound love of art. He started with oil paintings of birds, then began to make lampshades using thin slices of rock instead of stained glass. Amazed at the effect, Taylor started on an ambitious project to make what he called the Living Rock Pictures – collages of backlit rock slices depicting scenes from the Bible.
That led to the idea for The Living Rock Studios, a place to house his work and showcase his skill with masonry. He was the visionary, but the project was a group effort. Local construction crews alerted him to caches of rock found while blasting or digging to build roads. Friends and neighbors volunteered their time and effort. His daughters helped create key features of the studios. And his wife, Faye, who cleaned houses to help support the family, gave him space and freedom to do it all, seeing it as God’s will.
“It was never supposed to be about Dad,” Mackey said. “He didn’t do it for a legacy for him, he did it for a legacy for Oregonians.”
After 10 years of work, the building opened to the public, the grand opening held the same day as Howard and Faye’s 50th wedding anniversary. Since then, the attraction has drawn visitors and rock hounds from around the world, offering tours of Taylor’s artistry alongside colorful displays of rocks and geodes.
His family charges no admission, asking only for donations of $3 a person. That approach has ensured The Living Rock Studios remains a place of community, open for all who find their way to it, but it’s also made it hard to keep the doors open.
Taylor’s building is beautiful, but its design makes it difficult for his daughters to keep it up to modern standards. Since his death, the sisters have had to install heating, and will have to replace the roof once they can afford it. And while the building was originally designed to accommodate visitors with disabilities, newer regulations have forced them to close a staircase between the two floors, winding up the beautiful Tree of Life made of petrified wood.
“We are very near the point where we cannot continue because we do not make enough,” Mackey said. “There’s a very definite urgency about it.”
With their children called to pursue other careers, the sisters are considering a wide range of other options for future ownership. Ideally, Mackey said, they’d like to see the building become a visitors center for the Over the Rivers & Through the Woods Scenic Byway, which begins in Brownsville. But because their attraction is staunchly Christian, they worry the Oregon Department of Transportation would strip out all religious aspects – including their father’s beloved Living Rock Pictures – and haven’t approached the agency with the idea.
Don Hamilton, a spokesman for ODOT, said while the agency doesn’t operate religious-themed attractions, they would be happy to hear any proposals The Living Rock Studios might have.
But the sisters are also considering a second option: organizing a consortium of local government agencies, community groups and Christian organizations to jointly own and operate their family’s attraction. But gathering a group like that is no small feat, and with the women soon entering their 70s and 80s, time and energy is a struggle, Mackey said.
They certainly worry, but the sisters remain optimistic, driven by the same sense of faith that drove Taylor in the first place. God wouldn’t have had him build the studio for nothing, they say, so there must be a future in it – somehow. One thing they don’t worry about is what their father would think about the rocky future of his legacy built in stone.
“We walked through the faith walks with Mom and Dad, day by day,” Mackey said. “I think his greatest joy would be for the Lord to say, ‘well done.’”
Article by Jamie Hale for The Oregonian/OregonLive, posted April 15, 2018 at 06:15 AM.
