Thank You - Jim Bayley!
The Story of Jim Bayley – as told by Florence Bayley
Growing up in NYC during the depression, Jim was a late bloomer in his youth…especially in school. He was a hyperactive youngster that when his teachers finally got tired of his antics distracting his classmates, they put him in a special ed class where he thrived! It was a small class where there were songs and games and lots of outdoor activities…but not so much learning. This occurred in 2nd grade and somehow, he stayed there until 7th grade. He led a happy go luck life, had lots of friends and eventually graduated and went on to high school. Immediately upon graduation, he and 5 buddies join the Navy during the Korean War. Four years later, he’s out realizing he hated taking orders from those with a higher rank and didn’t like the regimentation, and vows to never work for anyone except himself. And he never does.
With not much education and getting married, his father suggests he take some aptitude tests offered by Columbia University to see what type of work he’d be suited for. After several days of testing, his advisors say, “I don’t know what you were doing in high school, but your tests show a lot of intelligence and a high IQ. I suggest since you’re entitled to a free education thanks to four years in the service, you should check out Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as you show an aptitude in working with your hands, among other things. His favorite classes in school were “shop”. He checked out RIT, gets married, starts college, and six months later is on the honor list. He studies furniture design and four years later, graduates with honors. So much for special ed!
His favorite instructor is a famous woodworker, Tage Frid. Tage mentored him and when Jim graduates, Tage sold he and two friends his small custom furniture shop. The small cabinet shop grows into a small manufacturing company, then a medium sized one and twenty-seven years later, at the age of 49 he retires, now married to second wife Florence and moves to Santa Barbara to build his dream house.
An important message for those of you who have children, teach them to never allow themselves to be pigeon-holed into thinking they’re not good enough for something! Don’t settle for less in life, work hard in whatever you do and love what you do.
At forty-nine, now retired, he leaves Rochester NY and moves to Santa Barbara California to build his dream home which was designed by an architect who has designed two of his homes back east. With nothing but time on his hands, he physically builds his house with his son, one contractor, and a few outside helpers to excavate a pool, put in foundations and help with drywall work. The rest he does himself, including laying 4000 square feet of sautillo tiles. By the time he’s done two years later, he hardly has any skin on his knees. Once finished he said, “It’s the best piece of furniture I’ve ever built. You could lay a level on any surface and it would be level.”
While sitting on the back deck with his wife, he says, “I wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of my life”. Florence, sitting next to him looking through a brochure offering courses at SBCC suggests he take a stone sculpting class. And there starts the next chapter of his life. He finds it not very different than working with Wood. This evolves back-and-forth living in Italy for three months, every year for 10 years, working in a studio, shipping his pieces back to Santa Barbara at the end of each season. Not a bad hobby. Lots of new friends, traveling around Italy and spending a week unwinding on one of the beautiful lakes there and the food!!! Another story.
When the Euro came to be, costs overseas become prohibitive, so back in the state they decided to find a small lake somewhere in the north west to get away from the busyness of Santa Barbara which had grown into something other than the small town they bought into. The kids and grandkids could visit and it would be a nice respite. They drive up from California into Canada and back down looking for the perfect lake. And they did, at Twin Lake and bought a condo on the lake at Lakeview, one of the several associations at TLV and after one summer here decided they no longer wanted to be in Santa Barbara so now spend half the year here in the beauty and serenity of Idaho and half the year in Florida on the beach.
The energy and exuberance Jim has had his entire life was now focused at Lakeview condominiums. From the time he arrived here he has spent as many hours each week as the average person does working. He creates beautiful spaces for all of us to enjoy. One of his first projects was getting rid of the rickety wooden steps leading to our private beach and carves a staircase into the large boulders that lead to the water. Soon after, railings were installed and landscaping. He spent weeks hauling thousands of rocks in a wheelbarrow from various locations to Lakeview to surround the trees and gardens and delineate pathways. Planting and weeding, answering calls from neighbors about leaking sprinklers and mending broken chair legs for some. If the garage door was open, he was in business. Except he never made any money… it was strictly a volunteer effort. It was done not only for owners, but for his self-satisfaction. Several years later at a Board meeting (he was on the Board for about 10 years) the idea of our own docks at our own private beach was brought up. Renting space at the main docks at TLV became hard to get. He looked into it and got the permits, a length project, found a logger to build the underside of the docks and then once that was in place built the top side himself.
This year, at 87, Jim’s turned the maintenance type work over to some of the wonderful “younger folk” that have moved into the neighborhood and who are willing to put their time and effort into helping out to keep us looking beautiful. He does continue to take care of the docks and as soon as the water warms up he’ll be out water skiing with Florence driving the boat. It’s been a good life and he has enjoyed making this move to Idaho. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and ask him for a tour of his sculptures.