Date For Sweeney Cabin Show Is Bumped To February 11
by Bea Peterson
Nine pm this past Tuesday was the second show in the 10 part series Building Wild on the National Geographic channel. The show has created a great deal of interest in the area as all of the cabins were built within 30 miles of Hoosick and the co-star happens to be Pat “Tuffy” Bakaitis of North Hoosick. Generating plenty of interest as well is the cabin Tuffy and his Cabin Kings partner Paulie DiMeo built for Pat Sweeney and his son Ryan of Berlin. According to Pat, the show was originally scheduled to air on January 28, but it was later bumped to February 11.
[private]The idea of the show is that the property owner has a piece of fairly inaccessible land on which he would like a cabin. He will supply 12 to 15 friends to volunteer to build that cabin and provide plenty of building material from the property as well. The Sweeneys, loggers, had plenty of both. Pat said if you look above the Berlin Municipal Center in Cherry Plain there is a grove of white pines and the cabin is at the foot of the pines. “It faces toward Cherry Plain,” he said. It is accessible from his home in Center Berlin. Building the cabin, he said, was interesting. “There were a lot of things going on all the time and a lot of people involved.” It wasn’t just the Sweeneys’ crew. Bakaitis and DiMeo have their own building crew as well, plus the camera and production crews.
Pat said the Cabin Kings came out with some real good ideas, “But they were pretty good about listening to Ryan and me and my wife Debbie when it came to what we wanted.” As for the finished product, Pat said, “It’s lovely. We’ve used it quite a bit.”
Building Wild is on the National Geographic Channel every Tuesday night at 9 pm. The show, entitled “Log Jam,” featuring the building of the Sweeney cabin, will air Tuesday, February 11, at 9 pm. The lead for the show states, “Pat and Ryan Sweeney have a father and son logging business and a pile of ‘trash’ that’s about to become treasure.
DiMeo 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. DiMeo 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, DiMeo runs the pontoon right into a tree! Once successfully at the top of the mountain, DiMeo and Bakaitis 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?”
Local Crew
John Sweeney heads up the Cabin Kings’ local building crew. He said building the ten cabins featured in the series has been one of the most challenging and interesting experiences of his life. Most of his crew is from Hoosick, one fellow is from Massachusetts, one from Bennington, VT, and one from Queensbury. They are: Lead Carpenters – John R. Cooney, Anthony Woods and Steven Forrest; Carpenters – William Ellis, Flip Fortin, Dean DuBois, Dick Madison, Bud Madison, Denny Gardner, Dan Wasielewski, Sam Miller, John Kolitus, Branden Thompson, John Gagnon, Heath MacNeil and Jason Hale; Carpenter’s Assistant – Lacy Baily; Materials Coordinator – Matt Jones; Drafting Assistant – John Hayden; Advance Movers – Ray Pine, Spencer Truax and Toby Reapel; Production Manager – Jeff Buck, and Production Assistants – Brian Jenkins and Jesse Dawson. Watch the shows carefully. You never know when you will see any one of them on the screen.
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