by Bea Peterson
It is amazing how one thing can lead to another and another and life takes an incredible turn. That is what happened this summer when television producer and Hoosick native George Verschoor introduced Paul DiMeo, nine year feature designer of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to Hoosick Sand and Gravel’s Pat Bakaitis. Verschoor produced “Extreme Makeover” for two years.
[private]Bakaitis took DiMeo to see the five cabins he had built in remote locations in the area. A germ of an idea was born, and the two decided to put their heads together and form a cabin design and construction business called Cabin Kings. The next step was to create a television show on constructing these cabins. Verschoor sold the idea to the National Geographic Channel and ten “Building Wild” shows were produced.
Speaking Wednesday from Los Angeles, after a nine hour flight, Bakaitis grumbled, “They shot 80 to 90 hours per cabin and only used 44 minutes of it for a show.” He was a little nervous about the next few days when they will be promoting “Building Wild” on PBS and NBC and other spots.
DiMeo describes “Tuffy” Bakaitis as having a lot of bark but a big heart. He admits they are entirely different. DiMeo is a city guy, and Bakaitis is not. Verschoor said the show celebrates the outdoors and re-uses elements to build a little piece of paradise. He said Bakaitis is an amazing fabricator creating a turntable out of an old excavator so a whole cabin turns. He also created a wood burning hot tub for one cabin and an elevator for another. DiMeo said all of the cabins are about 400 square feet. Some of them have electric outlets powered by generators. All of them have outhouses.
Each week for the series the Cabin Kings met a new client who owned a challenging piece of wilderness within 30 miles of the Eastwick readership area and dreamt of building a cabin on that property. The Cabin Kings provided big ideas and construction know how. To keep costs low, the landowners provided some materials, brought together a workforce of friends and family and agreed to do the entire build in one week. These sites were often in rough terrain, miles from the nearest road. The Cabin Kings had to transport building materials, and, where there was no road, they had to build their own.
The first episode on January 14 is “Building Wild: Dirty Dozen Deer Lodge.” The Cabin Kings are charged with building a rustic hunting cabin in Jackson, outside Cambridge, for farmer Mike Carney and Mike’s 11 best friends. These buddies since childhood refer to themselves as The Dirty Dozen, and they’ve been spending hunting season together since they were in elementary school. Mike has a big dream and an even bigger group of friends, but he’s short on time and money. Paulie and Tuffy will re-purpose a 100 year old barn, that is one stiff wind away from complete collapse, on their 300 acre property into a brand new cabin. And they’ll do it the old fashioned barn-raising way. It takes 16 men to hold up the first wall. Struggling together, they raise the wall and get it nailed in place. The men celebrate, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Will the Cabin Kings be able to transform this ancient barn into a modern marvel that sleeps 12?
The January 21 episode of “Building Wild: Movable Beast” takes place in Vermont. The Cabin Kings are working with an ex-Navy SEAL who wants to build multiple camps to accommodate all his friends and family. While touring potential build sites on the property in The Beast – a 1963 military cargo truck that the clients use to drive all over their land – Paulie proposes a wild solution – taking the truck and turning it into a mobile cabin that you can drive anywhere on the property. The idea is just insane enough to work. But in order to set the foundation of the main cabin, the Cabin Kings and crew have to move huge boulders into position – a big undertaking in the best of conditions but on a remote location, a nearly impossible job. Plus, because there are no roads to deliver materials, some local loggers will have to build their own road. Paulie and Tuffy also learn that the truck is called The Beast for a reason; it’s an ornery, lumbering piece of equipment with no shocks, and the first time they try to pull it parallel to the cabin, the deck is almost taken out!
On January 28 “Building Wild: Log Jam” premiers with Pat and Ryan Sweeney of Berlin. They have a father and son logging business and a pile of “trash” that’s about to become treasure. Paulie pitches the idea of building a “cabin fit for a logger,” constructed entirely of materials found on the property. But they will have to contend with a steep mountain trail nearly a mile long. Paulie puts into action an idea to build the entire front façade of the cabin with stacked firewood to create a cordwood look. He then throws in an extra project by converting the discarded pontoon boat they found at the bottom of the hill into a floating party island. The team rigs up a log hauling machine to pull the massive boat up the mountain, but halfway up Paulie navigates the pontoon right into a tree! Once successfully at the top of the mountain, Paulie and Tuffy rush to strip the boat and build a new deck with a diving platform. With all of the new additions, will the thing even float?[/private]