Twenty-four years ago, at 61, Laura Shanklin did the unexpected. With the help of a cowboy friend, she hand-built a rock house in the Sonoran desert. Resorting to locally available materials, thousands of rocks, and hundreds of bags of cement, it took her 18 months of effort before she could call the 950-square-foot property her home.
Born in West Virginia, Ms. Shanklin, now 85, has lived in New York, Texas, Kentucky, California, Rhode Island, Vermont, Chicago, and Arizona over the years.
