Rareloom Workshop

A Humble Start

Rareloom Workshop’s heritage dates back to Richard “Dick” Lee and his wife Helen Lee’s hardscrabble dairy farm in South Central Idaho, between Jerome and Twin Falls.  The couple homesteaded a rocky, windswept 40 acre parcel in the middle of the Great Depression, raising dairy cattle (and four children) and selling milk.  They supported the farm with outside jobs, Dick by teaching high school shop and creating his own line of products from his workshop.  His work was prolific and diverse over the years – everything from original design tables and chairs to caricature carving to welded sculpture and casting in aluminum and bronze.   The homestead’s only bathroom doubled as Helen’s darkroom for her budding photography studio, which had won a contract with a New York photo stock company that supplied a variety of publishers and magazines.  Her keen eye for composition, natural curiosity and darkroom skills made her a local celebrity and historian right up to her passing at the age of 97. 

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Talent Passed Down

Helen’s talent and passion for photography caught on with John, their oldest son, who as a university student helped pay for his education.  Long before the days of Polaroids, overnight film processing and cell phone cameras, he’d attend college dances and parties to photograph couples and the festivities, developing the negatives and proofs that same night from which orders could be placed the following day.  Like his mother, he mastered the science and art of the darkroom and throughout his professional career as a veterinarian, he continued to perfect the technical and composition aspects of his photography – shooting landscapes and people across the western U.S., South America, England and Europe.  Always a student of the masters, he was fortunate to have taken instruction from some remarkable photographers along the way including Ruth Bernhard, a contemporary of Ansel Adams among other outstanding West Coast artists such as Jerry Uelsmann, John Sexton, and John Telford. John’s landscape, nude and still life images can be found in the Idaho State Historical Museum, Idaho Capitol Building and in private collections across the country. 

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And on to the Next Gen

John’s youngest son, Roger grew up playing in his grandfather’s workshop and later building small projects in his dad’s new woodshop.  But his first attraction was to rock – hunting, collecting, polishing, cutting and even selling them to his classmates in grade school.  John’s large animal veterinary practice would periodically take the family to one of the most remarkable places on the planet for fine jaspers:  ranches along the Owyhee River in Oregon including Jim Morrison’s homestead, after which Morrisonite is named.   Woodworking, specifically box making and turning, became important therapy in his recovery from a rare blood disorder his senior year in high school.  Since then, woodworking has ranged from a full-time vocation to only occasional work in the shop amidst a professional career, family and other sideline pursuits around home moving and remodeling projects.  Roger’s work has been featured in The Art of Making Elegant Wood Boxes and carried by galleries including the Northwest Gallery of Fine Woodworking (Seattle), The Wood Merchant (La Conner), The Real Mother Goose (Portland), Artwood (Bellingham) and Art Source (Boise).    

Rareloom Workshop, heirlooms for generations to come…

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