Man With the Hammer: Celebrating 30 Years of QuarryHouse

Congratulations to COUPAR client QuarryHouse on their 30th anniversary! The Marin County-based master stone masons work with elite builders, architects, and interior designers, creating timeless private estates and prestigious public works. Ed and Missy Westbrook co-founded QuarryHouse, taking the company name from the location of their home in San Anselmo on an old rock quarry. The Westbrooks envisioned a stone company or a restaurant; they may have served Stone Soup if it were the latter. COUPAR wanted to know the origin story of their Man With the Hammer logo.

Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project, designed by Vera Bock 

The Westbrooks's neighbor, Philip Andrews, was a freelance graphic designer who designed the logo using a Rapidograph pen, artboard, and acetate overlay in the days before Mac. Philip found inspiration in the Works Progress Administration posters of the 1930s and 40s. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Second New Deal utilized graphic art to rally citizens at a time of social and economic crisis in the United States. The posters publicized exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in the District of Columbia and seventeen states, including California. 

Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project, designed by Albert M. Bender

The WPA put millions of unemployed Americans back to work who suffered during the Great Depression. The Federal Art Project provided funds for out-of-work artists, musicians, actors, and writers within the WPA. FAP employed over five thousand artists in various art projects producing public murals, paintings, sculptures, and graphic arts to enhance the lives of everyday Americans. QuarryHouse's Man With the Hammer is a proud descendent of that spirit, and if the Westbrooks still want a restaurant, Philip can transform him into the Man With the Whisk.