The Martini Sky Bar

I've long been fascinated by things that stick up in the air: mountains and fire towers particularly come to mind and fire towers have been an integral part of Junction since its inception. Three towers, all in miniature form, presently grace the grounds as of this writing. But I had dreams of having a real tower and I remember having a conversation with my son-in-law about how I had found a second-hand tower in upstate New York for sale for around 15K. As I recall it weighed 10,000 lbs and I could hire a Sikorsky heavy-lift helicopter to carry it to Needham and plant it in my backyard. Of course, the town would have some say in all of this and most likely veto the whole idea. 

Not to be deterred, I started to investigate the possibility of building a hydraulic lifting platform out in the backyard where it would be much less intrusive than a tower even when it was raised. Then, why the backyard? Why not build it right into the deck for ease of access? And so I decided to model that concept. I began with the deck and then felt the need to attach a house to the deck to complete the picture. Strings and pulleys articulate the whole thing (see "Videos") and the mindless pleasure it affords is a little scary! 

I even went so far as to commission a drone pilot to simulate a ride in the Sky Bar but I was a bit disappointed to find that once above the tree line most of what you see is just more trees and a few church steeples. Still, the dream lives on and maybe one day...