Many of you have asked for a look inside my shop, known as the Secret Underground Laboratory. Here's a video interview/shop tour that was taken a few months ago. It's 5:40 of me walking through my shop, talking about my business and my machines. The video was shot by Scott Duckett, with me talking to Ernie Villegas. Ernie has been hired by the city of Fillmore (where we are) to promote business development in the city.
Ernie and Scott shot similar videos of most of the other tenant shops here in the building. Eventually, the plan is to put them all into an official city web site. But Scott went ahead and posted this one of me on YouTube.
This video doesn't cover all of my shop, but we briefly go through most of the areas specifically used in building my Scroll Basses. We didn't really go through my heavy woodworking machines, or the routing bench, or the other bay with my oldest antique metalworking machines. But it's a good overview. It was all shot in one continuous take.
If you didn't know it, I'm in the basement of a giant old Sunkist orange packing house in the little historic town of Fillmore California. The old wing of the building was built in 1914, and the "new" wing was added in 1934. Back in those days, this packing plant was a bustling operation, the heart of the town.
It's about 50,000 sf on the main floor, with a tall timber-trussed roof. Down below is a long narrow basement of about 40,000 sf. It's all concrete walls, 7 feet below ground level, divided into about 50 rooms and compartments. It was designed specifically for storing oranges. The whole basement naturally stays between 65 and 75 for almost the entire year. Perfect shop working conditions.
Sunkist closed the packing house down in 1970. The building went through several owners, including being a furniture factory and a warehouse for aircraft parts. It was then semi-abandoned for about ten years. The current owner, David Storrs, bought it on Foreclosure about 5 years ago. The city was very concerned about the building, because it's right in the middle of the city, and it's such a part of the history of the city. And it's a very unusual building in structure and layout; not suitable for most normal development things.
David's plan is to restore the building in fairly historic form, and lease it out to small private craftsman shops. That's what we're doing. I was one of the early tenants, moving my shop into the basement in late 2013. The building is now about 2/3 full of tenants, all kinds of interesting creative people. There are currently six of us Luthiers: Myself, Keith Horne, Mike Lipe, Jon Wilson, Rob Allen, and Raul Reulas. A few others are thinking about joining us. I help to manage the building, particularly us basement dwellers.
It's a wonderful environment for small craftsman shops. Cool and comfortable and secure and inexpensive. And Fillmore itself is a neat little town. Peaceful, no real crime, hot rods, old trains, surrounded by farms and orchards, California weather, 25 miles from the beach. Americana, stuck in 1963.
If any of you are looking for shop space around the Los Angeles area, contact me. We still have some space.
We just started an overall web site for the building at: Home
Ernie and Scott shot similar videos of most of the other tenant shops here in the building. Eventually, the plan is to put them all into an official city web site. But Scott went ahead and posted this one of me on YouTube.
This video doesn't cover all of my shop, but we briefly go through most of the areas specifically used in building my Scroll Basses. We didn't really go through my heavy woodworking machines, or the routing bench, or the other bay with my oldest antique metalworking machines. But it's a good overview. It was all shot in one continuous take.
If you didn't know it, I'm in the basement of a giant old Sunkist orange packing house in the little historic town of Fillmore California. The old wing of the building was built in 1914, and the "new" wing was added in 1934. Back in those days, this packing plant was a bustling operation, the heart of the town.
It's about 50,000 sf on the main floor, with a tall timber-trussed roof. Down below is a long narrow basement of about 40,000 sf. It's all concrete walls, 7 feet below ground level, divided into about 50 rooms and compartments. It was designed specifically for storing oranges. The whole basement naturally stays between 65 and 75 for almost the entire year. Perfect shop working conditions.
Sunkist closed the packing house down in 1970. The building went through several owners, including being a furniture factory and a warehouse for aircraft parts. It was then semi-abandoned for about ten years. The current owner, David Storrs, bought it on Foreclosure about 5 years ago. The city was very concerned about the building, because it's right in the middle of the city, and it's such a part of the history of the city. And it's a very unusual building in structure and layout; not suitable for most normal development things.
David's plan is to restore the building in fairly historic form, and lease it out to small private craftsman shops. That's what we're doing. I was one of the early tenants, moving my shop into the basement in late 2013. The building is now about 2/3 full of tenants, all kinds of interesting creative people. There are currently six of us Luthiers: Myself, Keith Horne, Mike Lipe, Jon Wilson, Rob Allen, and Raul Reulas. A few others are thinking about joining us. I help to manage the building, particularly us basement dwellers.
It's a wonderful environment for small craftsman shops. Cool and comfortable and secure and inexpensive. And Fillmore itself is a neat little town. Peaceful, no real crime, hot rods, old trains, surrounded by farms and orchards, California weather, 25 miles from the beach. Americana, stuck in 1963.
If any of you are looking for shop space around the Los Angeles area, contact me. We still have some space.
We just started an overall web site for the building at: Home
