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From quarry to home site photos by Bob Pennell Landscape designer Kerry KenCairn surveys the terraced lots she created form the old Granite Street quarry across from Lithia Park in Ashland. The project includes 12,219 square feet of retaining walls and a public stairwell to an irrigation ditch trail above. Hillside project took serious engineering By Wendy Siporen of the Mail Tribune ASHLAND -- In this town where growth is a four-letter word, even an innovative reclamation project can be viewed as the destruction of open space. A window in a house under construction frames a view of the terraced hillside. "People drive by and say, `How can they do that!' They think it's land rape," said Kerry KenCairn, the landscape architect for the recently completed reclamation of the old Granite Street quarry across from Lithia Park's upper duck pond. "People don't remember what it was before. "I guess the fear is if you can do it here, you can do that whole hillside in walls," she said, gesturing to the steep slopes under Ridge Road on the other side of Lithia Park. "This is not a developer's dream at all -- it's really a dream of someone who wanted to live here." It's the dream of owners Rob and Susan Cain of Lafayette, Calif., who purchased the old quarry from the Westgaard family. Ralph Westgaard said the site dates back at least to World War I, when it was owned by the Beeson family. It wasn't the source of Ashland's high-quality, hard-rock granite, used for foundations across the Northwest; the decomposed granite pulled from the site was used for many fill projects through the 1960s. "I didn't think I'd see it in my time," Westgaard said of the five upscale houses planned for the site. "Looks like I have." One of three homes planned for Granite Street is nearing completion and has been sold. A steep driveway winds to two additional building lots above. Deer-proof vegetation, grass and a mixture of glue, fertilizer, grass and flower seeds have been planted on the terraces and steeper slopes of the three-acre site. Five additional acres behind the houses were donated to the city as open space, allowing denser development on the lower section. As a condition of approval for the project, the Ashland Planning Commission required the Cains to put in a public stairwell, leading to the irrigation ditch trail above the property. But the climb isn't for the fainthearted. It's a 120-foot vertical climb from street level to the gate at the top of the stairs. Many thought the project would never be completed because of its scale and the investment needed to reclaim the site. "Most people say we were absolutely nuts," said Susan Cain, a tax partner in an accounting firm. Cain declined to specify just how much she and her husband, the chief executive officer of a distribution company, have invested in their dream, saying only, "It was a ton." "Our ultimate goal was not to make a ton of money," said the native Oregonian. "Our ultimate goal was to have a lot we loved at the end of the process." Now as the first house of "Granite Estates" nears completion, project team members are pretty proud of what they have accomplished. "Basically, we created an environment where there wasn't one," said KenCairn. "This is not evil development. ... It's appropriate infill." The "infill" project actually required the removal of 4,800 cubic yards of decomposed granite and rock, some of it chiseled from the hard-rock hillside, the remainder of it held back with 12,219 square feet of retaining walls. Two thousand yards of topsoil were brought in to revegetate the area and 8,155 individual keystone blocks were used for the retaining walls, which are stabilized with fiberglass pins. The walls -- none of which exceeds five feet in height -- are additionally stabilized every two feet with a plastic web of fabric attached to the pins. The weight of the soil on top of the fabric helps keep the walls vertical, explained KenCairn. "It seems really solid," said KenCairn. "I'm really surprised, to be honest." Geotechnical engineer Mark Amrhein is slightly more confident. "It's designed to be stable. The walls are all founded on bedrock. There's an extensive drainage network behind the walls," he said. "This winter will be our first real test." But Amrhein expects only minor erosion to occur during winter rains. Three and a half years after Cain first saw the "for sale" sign, the only thing she is anticipating is leaving hectic California behind. "I stand in front of it now and I'm really glad that we did it," she said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA