Builder
Isaac French is showing what rebuilding a small town can look like.
His best-known project is Live Oak Lake, the seven-cabin retreat he designed and built outside Waco, Texas. The project became a destination, built a large following, and eventually gave Isaac a platform for teaching other people how to create places of their own.
His work reaches much further than those seven cabins.
In Deary, Idaho, Isaac’s family, friends, and neighbors have spent years bringing new life to a town of roughly 550 people.
They have restored an old Ford garage into a bakery and creamery. An old appliance shop became a craft and fabric store. Another brick building became home to a butcher shop and mercantile. A 1906 rail car was pulled from a farmer’s shed, restored by hand, and turned into a place to stay. The town’s old train depot and a caboose were saved too.
Nearby, the family restored a century-old farm, rebuilding a hand-hewn barn into a gathering place and bringing an old farmhouse back to life.
Isaac has planted a five-acre community orchard with friends near his home. More than $75,000 and a thousand hours of work went into it before they tasted the first fruit.
And in Deary, a four-stall Tesla Supercharger now sits beside the family bakery. Isaac sees it as another piece of the town’s future, giving travelers a reason to stop long enough to discover the businesses, buildings, food, and people around it.
Each project adds something to the others.
A place to eat makes the lodging stronger. Restored buildings give businesses a home. Visitors support local operators. New infrastructure brings people through town. History gives the experience character. The people doing the work give it life.
Isaac shares what he learns along the way.
Through Field Notes, videos, films, and Experiential Hospitality, he teaches people about financing, design, construction, operations, storytelling, craft, and the process of turning an idea into something physical. His teaching comes from a career of trying things himself, from making cheese as a teenager to building cabins, restoring railroad history, planting trees, and learning filmmaking.
Taken together, the work offers a practical vision for rebuilding places.
Restore the building. Open the business. Plant the trees. Learn the craft. Teach someone else. Give people a reason to stop.
Then keep caring for it.
Deary shows what can happen when enough small projects begin reinforcing one another.
The town sits far from a major city or interstate. Isaac’s family moved there in 2009 and began working with friends and neighbors to restore pieces of the place around them.
One building became a bakery and creamery. Another became a craft store. Historic railroad equipment became lodging. An old farm became a place for weddings, gatherings, gardens, and hospitality.
Now a Tesla Supercharger beside the bakery gives travelers another reason to stop.
Isaac imagines more rural towns developing that same kind of ecosystem, rooted in their own buildings, landscapes, businesses, crafts, food, and history.
His approach begins at a remarkably small scale.
Save one building.
Make one business worth visiting.
Plant one tree and learn how to keep it alive.
Do enough of those things with enough care, and the town starts to feel different.
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