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A nearly 10,000-square-foot house built on its owners' visions over 14 years is now on the market for $8.2 million, the owners having moved to Maui before it was finished. Sitting on 700 acres above the Payne Cliffs north of Ashland, the house is the creation of Dr. Genesis Young and his wife, Sulara (previously known as Scott Young and Robin James). He is a hand surgeon and shaman and she is a therapist and daughter of the founder of Raymond James financial services. Genesis Young, in a phone interview from Hawaii, says the house was designed from his shamanic visions and executed by longtime Ashland builder Ed Bemis, with the help of many local artists and artisans. The house features a spiral staircase, wood carvings with Native American themes, river-rock walls, hand-shaped copper fencing and two large, Brazilian mahogany entry doors engraved by Russell Beebe, sculptor of the “We Are Here” totem pole in downtown Ashland. Beebe's little, carved animals subtly dot the house. “It was a trip working for the doctor,” says Beebe. “We workmen would be up there on appointment to discuss things with him and we always had to wait for Scott’s latest dream before he would walk out with his poodle and tell us what to do. His dream included a rattlesnake for the doors. I made one, and he wanted it to have more texture, so I sat down at my computer, looking up rattlesnake skin, then one crawled across my feet. The cat brought it in. I told Dr. Young, and he was so thrilled. We have so many kinds of hilarious anecdotes about that place, all very New Age.” Bemis says the house reflects its natural surroundings and the “humble” nature of the owners, who are “so open and pure of soul.” Bemis tried to carry the element of water flowing throughout the house, especially in the flooring. It’s overall color is a blue-hued gray, like water, he adds. “Water is life. It’s the call of nature,” says Sulara Young. “It was all received as a vision. Our intent was to create beauty, grounded in nature and life. Genesis was given the vision (in shamanic journeys). We were not asking for the vision. We feel we were guided to build it in a specific way.” Cherry, maple and exotic woods of many colors make up the flooring, which undulates like a stream through the main rooms. Each piece was shaped using computer engineering, Bemis says. Even the most experienced craftsmen may gaze in awe at the workmanship — simple-looking baseboards that suddenly make 180-degree turns but with no cuts. Closer scrutiny shows them to be bent and bonded from numerous smaller strips. Glass follows the many curves of this mostly nonlinear building, but a closer look reveals most of the glass itself is curved. Trees are a dominant theme, with actual manzanita branches incorporated into a banister and metal limbs shaped and hammered from copper sheeting. Two tiled dragons entwine, embedded above the fireplace mantel. The circular master bedroom looks out over the Ashland and Talent area, with the snow-capped Siskiyous and Coast Range on the south horizon. Mount Shasta peeks out behind Pilot Rock. The cedar tongue-and-groove ceiling meets in a shallow cone of the ceiling, but not in the center. Everything is off-center, says Bemis, as in nature. On the walls, windows are cut in the shape of clouds and trees. The winding stairs to the upper bedrooms have myrtlewood steps seemingly balanced on a winding tree trunk, but the “trunk” is really bent and shaped from smaller pieces of wood. Shaped copper forms the handrails. “The entrance and first impression are magical," says agent Kendra Ratcliff of Luxe Platinum Properties. "The woodwork is simply stunning, and the craftsmanship is impeccable. I was in awe. I felt a sense of peacefulness, almost as if the inside and outside were in perfect unison.” The Youngs created the nearby Circle of Teran Ranch, an $8 million residence and retreat center, which went through a lengthy and successful legal battle to be declared a church, then was auctioned in 2014 for $1.5 million to Doug Neuman, owner of Neuman Hotel Group, which includes the Ashland Springs Hotel. It has since been sold and became the Circle of Trust, a high-end drug and alcohol recovery center. John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected]. null