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Article from: Beaumont TX Enterprise - Sunday, March 19, 2000
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Man creates furnishings from antique fishing rods By Jim McElhatton - The Enterprise But Irl Unruh reels in the antique rods somehow from friends, customers and sometimes over the Internet. The house builder who moved here from Beaumont needs fishing rods for his new job like he did two-by-fours for his old one. Unruh turns old rods, reels and fishing line into trendy home furnishings. Already, collectors from all across the country have bought the unique fishing rod-styled lamps that Unruh builds in his spare time.
Unruh's rod-lamps, available by mail order, are not cheap, fetching between $400-$700 each. But they are not cheap to make either. The lampshade alone costs about $90 and all the fishing parts are antique, some bait casting reels even contain rubies. "The collecting of antique fishing rods and reels and other stuff has gone crazy in the last few years, " he said. But to supply that demand is not easy. In the past year working part-time Unruh made 80 lamps - 25 of which he gave away to friends or to charity. |
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He drills one foot into the pole from each end of the two-foot long rod turned lamppost. "I hope to meet them up but sometimes I've gone through the side". If he drills through the side of the pole by accident - it's over. He tosses the rod away. "I have definitely ruined my share," he said. "You're going to have a few discards." And often, too, the delicate bamboo can crack, like when he slips electrical wire through the hole he drilled in the rod. At opposite ends of that wire he attaches a light socket and an antique reel, with decades old line that runs back up to the socket. To turn the lamp on or off, a person turns the reel. Add to that a fine wood base, the fancy shade and a medium sized light bulb and Unruh's lamp is set to plug in. Unruh could mass-produce the lamps if he could figure out a way to drill the hole in the rod by machine. "I've looked in every tool house and through everything, the medical field, even lasers, but nothing works," Unruh said "You just have to do it by hand." Which is, of course, what makes Unruh's lamps so sought after that they're worth hundreds of dollars. But one can tell by looking at the builder, a sort of Texas version of Jimmy Buffett, that he is not in the lamp business for money.
| Recently, for example, Unruh received what on paper might have looked like a great deal. |
It was an offer to buy his beach house. But Unruh's is not just any beach house. And this was not just any offer. The only thing Unruh's house doesn't have is wall space, and what covers the walls pays homage to family, pop culture, hunting, fishing, and Ernest Hemingway. What catches the eye as one walks through his door is a stuffed deer relaxing in a hammock, hanging from the ceiling. Standing at the door is a life size wood dolphin wearing a turtle shell for a cap. And there is a giant green sign that reads "Galveston - 5 miles," which Unruh likes to use to quiz visitors, "Do you know where that came from? - Five miles outside Galveston." A recent visitor, employed by a restaurant chain in Atlanta, was so impressed that he offered Unruh "a lot of money" for his house and everything in it. The corporation's plan was to move the house next to one of its restaurants. It would have been a novelty. But Unruh's grown son, who likes to use the beach house for a getaway, wasn't crazy about the idea. "And that's all I needed to hear," he says. |
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