Our History
The History of "The Yard" and Sunset Log Homes of Oregon
In the summer of 1985, Moby Pendergrass went to work for his father's company, A Place in the Sun. He began learning and mastering the centuries old tradition of Scandinavian hand scribe log home building. With the location in the beautiful coastal mountain range of Northwestern Oregon, Sunset Log Homes of Oregon holds a long history in the Pacific Northwest. We call our home location and facility "The Yard".
The Yard-
It first started out in the late 40's as a small shale processing plant. The original kiln was located next to our current office (where we now have a small parking lot). The old processing plant was called "Empire Light Rock". This was before the tunnel was put in place on Oregon highway 26 (41 miles from highway 101). So people had to drive around from Vernonia or Timber to get to the processing plant.
Later the plant was sold to some owners from Utah who had a similar system in place there. They moved the kiln to a lower level of "The Yard" and invested (from what we have been told) around $3 million to do the upgrades. These masive structures still exsist today, but unfortunately, in the mid 70's interest rates were around 18%, lines at the gas pumps, and no one was building. Thus, no demand for products so the operation closed down and was auctioned off in the late 70's.
Some of the Utah partners were able to purchase the land and existing structures at the auction, however they were "late to the auction", due to fog at the airport. Several locals were at the auction and bought up several items such as conveyors and wanted to "resell back", at an exhorbitant markup, to the Utah partners. This ended up being like shooting yourself in the foot as the Utah partners got disgusted with the locals, packed up and went home; leaving the quarry/kiln unopened, and 35 locals unemployed.
Sometime in the 80's the owner of A Place in the Sun and Sun Country Logworks started renting the entire site and acted as the defacto caretaker. Later he was able to purchase the quarry from the Utah partners. During this period, many homes and commercial building where fabricated on site at "The Yard" and shipped out to be placed on their foundations all across the country. "The Yard" was also used partually as a Log Home building school, where many of todays log home builders from around the country started the process of learning techniques on how to build log homes. A Place in the Sun stopped opperation in the late 90's, but a new company was on the horizon. Sunset Log Homes of Oregon!
In the 2000's, Moby started Sunset Log Homes of Oregon and continues today the ancient art of handcrafting log homes and buildings.
Digging for Fossels-
A lot of people from around Oregon and Southwest Washington have old memories of being at "The Yard" digging for fossels. Some remember going on a field trip in grade school and driving up highway 26, stopping just after the tunnel, and having a wonderful time digging in the quarry for sea-bed fossels. Unfurtunantly, at this time "The Yard" is a very active building facility and many projects are in continues movement, so we are unable to provide public access, as it would be too dangerous.