(1) New Monastery

Chapter 2. New Monastery

My manager walked into my office accompanied by a tall middle-

aged fellow.  He introduced himself as "Brother Philip" from the

Millennial Monastery in Arizona.  He had approached our firm,

because his monastery had acquired land in Southern California

and intended to build another monastery.  

I was somewhat taken aback, because not only were most

churches on the wane but also traditional monasteries.  I knew

that many of the older monasteries had to sell their properties

and bunch up at so-called "mother houses," due to the lack of

new membership, a seriously aging population, and loss of

revenue.  So, yes, I was surprised that here was a monk walking

into my office declaring that his monastic group wanted to invest

in a new monastery.

Sitting back in my chair, I listened to what the monk was saying.

His Arizona monastery was already "full-up," and their long term

plan over the next few decades was to build new monasteries 

in selected States in the American West.

Indeed, there were already monks living in trailers on their

California property.  That really surprised me!  At this point I

began to realize that this would be a priority job.  And I was

grateful, too, that my management was giving me a chance 

taking charge of this obviously big project.  It was apparent

that I would be working on a whole group of buildings, that

also would involve considerable landscaping as well.  This

effort would not be a small little church.  So I was determined

to do my best.

Right off I was amazed at the location where the monks had

decided to buy land.  It was in the foothills of the San Ysidro

Mountains.  Not more than 3500 feet above sea level, these

mountains were not too challenging.  But the monks had

chosen their land well, in that they would be high enough 

to capitalize on the "natural air-conditioning" provided by

the winds blowing through the mountain passes.

However--even before Brother Philip and I drove out there

for a first-hand look, I had to ask about the utilities and the

availability of water.  For decades, other than as hiking trails,

this area was kind of the "orphan child" of San Diego County.

But the State had built more roads into this area, and the 

local Gas and Electric Company had begun running power

lines into the area as well,  They were thinking of eventual

development, that had been very long coming.  It's fairly

far out, and housing construction no longer runs at top

speed.  On the other hand, it seemed nicely remote yet

close enough to civilization for the monks  who were

already living there in rented trailers.

My major concern was access to water.  Again a small

revelation.  The sector's water authority had tapped into a

couple of reservoirs not that far away, and had extended

water pipelines out to the San Ysidro Mountains.  Like the

utilities, they were preparing for future housing--that never

came.

Nonetheless, one immediately obvious problem was FIRE

spelled in capital letters!  Over past decades some serious

fires had devastated parts of the San Ysidro Mountains.

Talking to the monks, who were kind of "squatting" on their

newly bought land, I stressed my concern and informed them

that, though expensive, any buildings we might design for

the new monastery would necessarily have to be built with

high-tech fire resistant materials.  This would raise the

construction costs fairly considerably.  The monks understood,

At this point Brother Philip said that it was time to visit his

monastery in Arizona and talk with the lead monk there, who he

referred to as the Rector.  So shortly thereafter we were winging

our way out to Flagstaff, Arizona.