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Styrofoam and concrete give Ashland home texture Mail Tribune photos/ Bob Pennell California residents Stanley and Maurine Mazor are building a replica of a Normandy chateau at the corner of Eagle Mill Road and Oak Street in Ashland. The project is a chance "to do things just for fun." Above, a gargoyle stands watch above the patio. By JONEL ALECCIA ASHLAND � From the highway, it�s hard to tell just what�s being built at the intersection of Eagle Mill Road and Oak Street. From one angle, it looks like a big gray barn. From another, it resembles a prison. Even the builder charged with the project admits to some structural ambiguity. "I can go anywhere in town and people say, �Oh, you guys are building the Taco Bell down there,�" said Steven Banks of Northwestern Handcrafted Homes, Inc. As usual, the truth is stranger than fiction. What Banks is actually building is a replica of a Normandy chateau, circa 1630, constructed mostly of concrete-and-Styrofoam blocks called Rastra. It�s a new home commissioned by a California computer chip designer with a passion for French architecture and the wherewithal to indulge it. "We really did this for fun," said Stanley Mazor, 58, who bought 26 acres of Ashland land in 1995. "There aren�t too many chances in your life where you get to do things just for fun." For Mazor and his wife, Maurine, 57, fun has meant recreating an actual chateau owned by the Marquis d�Aulan near the French beach resort of Deauville. Mazor, who is director of training for Cadabra, a Los Altos, Calif., computer firm, saw the chateau in an Architectural Digest book and traveled to France to find it. Then he decided to build one of his own on land wedged between Interstate 5 on the north and the Bear Creek floodplain on the south. "I had bought this junk property just outside the city limits," Mazor recalled. "I�m in my own little zone there, so I thought it would be less likely to be a nuisance for someone." Construction started last October on the first phase of a proposed three-phase project at 1280 Oak St. On Saturday, the Mazors will host a catered affair for 85 to 100 workers who have toiled at the site. "It�s not normal for the people who work on the house, especially the foundation, to see the finished version, so we thought we would have a party for them," Mazor said. What the workers will find is a nearly-completed 1,900-square-foot gray chateau, bedecked with arched windows, gargoyles and Italian porcelain tile floors. It�s crafted almost completely from the recycled Styrofoam-blend blocks reinforced with poured concrete and steel rebar. The three-story dwelling features stunning views of Mount Ashland, but also the roar of semi-trucks and motorhomes speeding by on Interstate 5, 60 feet from the 30-foot gambrel roof. The location near the freeway, the creek and Ashland�s sewage treatment plant has drawn quizzical comments from neighbors and passersby, said Banks, who has spent 30 years building Rogue Valley homes. One incredulous neighbor is Vadim Agakhanov, 38, an Ashland construction worker. "I�ve been driving by for months and thinking, �Why would you spend all that money building that house on such crappy land?�" he said. Banks acknowledged that the site posed some challenges. Though the house is situated off the floodplain, the ground beneath it includes 12 feet of expanding clay with an undergirding of sandstone. To stabilize the chateau, workers had to erect 12-inch pilings every eight feet, driving some of them 28 feet into the earth. "It�s not going anywhere now," Banks said. Neither Banks nor Mazor would divulge the costs involved in copying a chateau to the smallest detail. Jackson County assessor�s records tallied the market value of the site at about $127,000 before construction began. "I actually haven�t added up the numbers yet," Mazor demurred. "It�s a couple hundred thousand dollars for sure." For all its elegance, the house is not especially extravagant, Banks said. "We�re not using gold and we�re not using lots and lots of marble," he said. Still, it�s clearly an indulgence for the family that may or may not live in the house jokingly referred to as "the cabin." Mazor�s future plans include visions of a hedge maze, oak-lined driveways and, perhaps, a moat. "We�d like to build a little bridge so you�d have the feeling of crossing over a body of water to get to the chateau," he said. The place could be used as a bed-and-breakfast inn or a peaceful retreat for the California couple and their two grown sons. "We originally named it �Camelot� because it�s where dreams come true," Mazor said. 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