В Вермонте возрождают традицию каменного зодчества: мастерская Tall Grass создает долговечные сооружения из природного камня

Made in Vermont: Stone creations you’ll find in the tall grass BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - It is common to see moss-blotched walls and garden arches in fields throughout New England. Tall Grass designs and builds stonework to keep those creations alive with stonemasons bringing the practice toward the future. “Walls are kind of boundaries but we like to create boundaries that draw you to them,” Willie Belliveau of Tall Grass said. Tall Grass creates with the purpose of getting people to appreciate the beauty that can be found in something as simple as a rock. “Our biggest goal we always talk about is creating those invitations to get people outside, getting them into the tall grass,” Tall Grass partner Lindsay Colburn said. Willie Belliveau and Lindsay Colburn are the minds behind the design business, built using traditional dry-stone techniques without mortar. The stonework moves and melds with the land, but they’re far from fragile. “We get that question is it strong? I always say go try to push it over, it weighs like 100,000 pounds,” Belliveau said. Every creation is different, with fun and unique features. “Part of what we love about stonework is the storytelling process and how people connect with it,” Colburn said. Tall Grass makes benches, birdbaths and vases all out of rock, but that’s not all. “There’s a lot of interest for stuff like the egg, just something interesting that pops and adds some character to their property,” the creators said while showing off the first thing ever made. Crafting 10 to 20 projects every year, Tall Grass moves thousands of pounds of rock. They said good rocks can be closer than you think. “Most of the walls come from quarries because you can get a ton of stone really easily and mostly from Vermont. Then you can find a lot of stone on people’s properties, too. If you have land, there’s stone on your property and probably a stone wall that’s falling down,” Belliveau said. Sourcing locally helps keep the close relationships between the land and the people living on it. Tall Grass hopes fostering these sentiments can keep the traditional craft from disappearing. “This craft has been slowly dying for a really long time, but there’s been a resurgence of young people who are sick of the corporate world and looking for something else. We know this whole cool network of stone wall makers around New England, the country and even around the world that are loving it, getting into it and continuing the tradition,“ Belliveau said. They are creating something with a story that will last for generations. “It’s like you’re building something that will definitely outlive you and could outlive your kids if you did it right,” Belliveau said. Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.