Meet the Squamish man making whimsical birdhouses

Whimsical birdhouse maker

Photo: .

If there is something the world could use right now, it is a bit more whimsy.

A local Squamish man has that in spades or—er—birdhouses.

Stu Snowball—yes, that is his real last name—has been making Dr. Seuss-inspired birdhouses in his Valleycliffe garage for about three years.

He makes whirlygigs, too. Those are the characters that have parts that spin in the wind.

Polly the Parrot and Sammy the Toucan greet visitors at the driveway to his home.

Now retired, Snowball worked as an electrician at Whistler Blackcomb for 32 years.

How it started

Snowball said building birdhouses evolved organically from his woodworking passion.

“I’ve built a lot of furniture and stuff, but I ran out of room for that,” he said, with a chuckle.

He and his wife Carolyn Brown, have a cabin on a 0.4 hectare up in Sheridan Lake in the Cariboo, where it began.

(Fun fact, Brown said she doesn’t hyphenate her last name with her husband’s because it would be Brown-Snowball, which has—well—negative connotations.)

Brown was painting wooden signs for the vacation property, and it inspired Snowball to make something too.

Now, the Cariboo property is “just full of birdhouses,” Snowball said.

His Squamish yard is pretty chockablock full as well.

Not all are Dr. Seuss-inspired.

“I quite like the colourful ones. I like bold, bright colours. That's what I like about Dr. Seuss, too,” he said.

While birds have taken to populating his lake house birdhouses, Sea to Sky birds are a bit more fickle, he said, noting he hasn’t seen birds using them.

Trailside treasures

Snowball mills his own wood from his vacation property to make the birdhouses.

He pays about $25 to purchase the plans online, and aside from the paint and glue, there is little additional cost.

Each one takes about six to eight hours to make, start to finish.

Beyond his yard, he has placed about 12 of them on the Summer's Eve trail in Crumpit Woods, because Crumpit is the mountain where the Grinch lives in Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, of course.

Someone noticed them and posted appreciative photos to the local Facebook forum, which quickly garnered about 125 likes.

“The fact that people enjoy that has me motivated now,” he said, with a laugh.