side of the hatch, I can see the top of a metal ladder that has a nautical character. The lad- der is difficult to negotiate but leads to a cellar below the shed. After I get over the shock of landing in this unexpected space, I feel the co- cooning embrace of the earth, in spite of the block walls, hanging photos of petroglyphs and old sofa against the wall. The stone floor is scarred with a narrow, meandering channel of water, gently flowing in spite of the freezing weather outside. The air is cold and moist. Talk about a man cave. This is clearly the origin of Dupin’s shed
journey. He started it around 2003, digging in a spot
well away from his house but close to the street. His first plan was to construct a subterranean wine cellar. The work was hard and long, and amid the clay soil were huge rocks that needed prying out. He also began to unearth the Indi- an arrowheads — actually “projectile points,” he says, as they predate the bow and arrow in North America.
Then a hurricane blew through, collapsing
the excavated site into a mud pit. “After a lot of digging, I finally shored up the wall with block, and at this point, I had found all these artifacts and decided to exhibit them” in a museum above the basement. And the wine cellar plan? “There’s some
wine, but right now I’ve got a keg of beer. I’m segueing into making beer down there.” The lower and upper parts are linked not just
with the artifacts but with water. Dupin pumps the groundwater into a plastic cistern, which is perched in the rafters like a barn owl. By grav- ity, it feeds a sink and an outdoor showerhead. It also moistens a wall of river pebbles, on which two small solar-driven fans are played. The wall drains into the basement, where the cycle be- gins again. The idea is to provide a vertical sheet of water for evaporative cooling in summer, but it doesn’t really work. In early summer, he can retreat to the basement, where the space is comfortably cool. By late August, the heat and humidity have found this hideaway.
The interior of Doug Dupin’s two- level shed in the Palisades serves as a museum of Native American artifacts, some of which he found while digging out its basement level. The exterior of the shed has a partial green roof and siding made from old oak pallets.
september 19, 2010 | The WAshiNgToN PosT MAgAziNe
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