Work of Joe Webb: Appalachian Master of Rustic Architecture

During the 1920s and 1930s, builder Joe Webb constructed nearly three dozen log homes in the tiny Appalachian town of Highlands, North Carolina. The cabins were built without the aid of power tools—or architectural plans—and all of these exquisite structures are located within a five-mile radius.

In The Work of Joe Webb, photographer Reuben Cox captures the atmosphere and ambience of these idiosyncratic and important historic buildings. Using a large-format field camera, Cox has documented all of Webb's extant cabins. Beautifully presented in tritone, his images explore the lush, rhododendron-filled settings of Webb's constructions as well as the rich grain of their chestnut and pine posts and beams. Cox, a Highlands native, also includes an essay that places the work within a regional and historical context. Yet this is less an analytical taxonomy of Webb's cabins than an expansive meditation in which Cox employs his own art to understand another man's life work and the extraordinary qualities of that which is handmade and unique.