Ferry Godfather

Architect shows that reusing discarded materials can be chic

Greens have been going on for years about the need to reuse society's refuse. Now, a high-end modernist San Francisco architect named Olle Lundberg is showing that scavenging is not just for the poor and idealistic. The rich can play too! For instance, Lundberg lives on a decommissioned Icelandic auto ferry, retrofitted with materials discarded from his other building projects. You too can construct a similarly hip domicile without using any new materials -- all you need is an environmental ethic, some dock space, and around $900,000. Or if a weekend cabin is more your speed, you can mimic Lundberg's approach on that front too: Refurbish a shack using solely materials discarded from other projects or reclaimed from demolitions, including a pool made from an old wooden water tank. He estimates building the cabin new would have run $750,000, while canny reuse reduced the price of renovations to $150,000. So, while the near-million-dollar ferry home is beyond the reach of 99.9 percent of us, $150K -- and some architectural expertise, and 16 acres -- well, that's, uh ... sigh.