It's a hot, windy spring day in rural Marana, with dust devils swirling on the horizon, and Eric Johnson has decided that it's too gusty for his crew at Clay Mine Adobe to make bricks.
But the next day, they get an early jump on the wind and by mid-morning a pallet of new, hand-cast adobe bricks is drying in the dusty heat.
Neither spring gales nor the fickle winds of a still-struggling construction industry can keep Johnson and his small operation down, but an unavoidable but unfortunately timed move almost sunk the business.
Johnson, a Tucson native who spent 15 years as a sailboat builder and captain in Seattle, founded Clay Mine Adobe in 1997 on West Old Ajo Way.
For more than a decade, he mined five acres of federal land under a Bureau of Land Management lease.
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At the height of the housing boom, Johnson said, the company sold nearly $1 million worth of adobe products in one year.
Probably the biggest and most visible project using Clay Mine Adobe brick is the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain, which opened in 2009 and is faced with Clay Mine's chocolate-colored adobe brick veneer.
When he ran out of mining area, the BLM let Johnson keep his mill in place and haul material under another mineral lease near Ryan Airfield, but it was clear it was time to find a new place.
Johnson sought the advice of experts at the University of Arizona and used federal geological maps to identify available land with suitable soil in the area. The best soil for adobe bricks has the right mix of sand, loam and heavy clay.
In 2009, he bought 10 acres of land rich with adobe-ready soil, southwest of Marana High School adjacent to state land.
But Johnson had sold off his old equipment and as he tried to ramp up operations, the local construction industry was sliding into what became a deep hole.
"I was planning on upgrading, but guess what? - the bottom fell out," he said.
With the help of some family financing, he's kept the small operation going mainly by selling his own clay plaster - which comes in 17 colors and can be applied much like a stucco finish. And more recently, Johnson has been making small, hand-made batches of adobe bricks.
Johnson's bricks are made from local sand and clay and stabilized with a Portland cement product, which keeps the bricks from eroding in the elements. Traditional adobe is made with straw binder, while burnt adobe is fired in kilns like regular clay bricks.
Longtime local mason Mike Cline recently applied Clay Mine Adobe brick as a veneer on a luxury home in Dove Mountain.
Builders and homeowners like the natural look of adobe, he said.
"When someone wants a real rustic look on their house that's the product to use," said Cline, adding that he prefers working in structural materials like stone.
But you won't find adobe bricks at your big-box home improvement store.
Clay Mine's hiatus left only one local adobe supplier - Tucson Adobe, which has been making bricks in Marana since 1996.
"There was a lapse there (when Clay Mine moved) but there weren't many jobs then anyway," Cline said.
Johnson is planning to ramp up production soon.
He built a steel building on the site, where he and his crew mix and bag plaster in the half of the structure that is enclosed so far.
In the next few weeks, he's planning to install a hydraulic "laydown machine" - which performs the process of filling, screening and slipping the brick forms with precision - and enclosing the rest of the building.
Johnson recently won a 20-year mineral lease for the adjacent state land at auction, providing materials for years to come.
Johnson said he hopes to keep the business going with smaller orders for repair jobs and custom homes and hopes to soon land a major job for a local church. He also sees sales opportunities in California, where adobe is scarce after major brickworks there closed down in the late 2000s.
And Johnson hopes timing will be on his side for a change, as the construction industry slowly recovers.
"It will probably not get back to where we were - we had developers who were building subdivisions (with adobe) and that will take a while to come back, and we have high hopes for the luxury market," Johnson said.
Did you know?
As recently as 2008, the Tucson area was home to three adobe brickmaking operations, including Clay Mine Adobe and Old Pueblo Adobe, which closed in late 2008 and now operates under new ownership in Scottsdale.
The only other adobe brickmaking operation in the area is Tucson Adobe in Marana. Owner John Acton, who founded the business in 1995, said he has continued operations despite the construction slump.
For more information
• Go to www.claymineadobe.com or call 578-2222.
Contact Assistant Business Editor David Wichner at dwichner@azstarnet.com or 573-4181.