Referenews

In other words, he said, “I didn’t know how to pull something like this off.”

Mr. Maxon first met Mr. Kundig in 2008, shortly after he and his wife, Kim Maxon, 52, bought their 21.5-acre lot outside Seattle for around $328,000, with the idea of building a modernist home they could share with their children, Henry, now 23, Jack, 20, and Charlie, 16. Ms. Maxon gave her husband a book about Mr. Kundig’s work as a Christmas gift and, flipping through its pages, they decided he was the architect for the job.

The process of designing and building the house took longer than they expected because of challenges with the steep site and the intricacies of obtaining a construction loan following the financial crisis. When the house was finally completed in 2016, Mr. Maxon dove head first into the design and construction of his rolling studio.

Naturally curious and keen to prove that the idea could be realized, Mr. Maxon decided he wouldn’t just be the conductor of the finished structure — he would also be the general contractor and personally work through the details, find the necessary materials and parts, and orchestrate the construction.

“Between 2016 and 2018, it was a lot of research,” he said. “I approached the studio like I would any project.” He read about railroads that used to run through the area, befriended workers at a nearby rail yard and spent vacations riding the rails.

“I went crazy for trains,” he said. “I found myself, on a Sunday afternoon, at a train show. We took the Empire Builder, which was the original Great Northern, from Seattle to Chicago and back. I went on a trip to Japan with my son, and we went on trains.”

To build his own railroad, Mr. Maxon sourced reclaimed rails from Harmer Steel that were once used by the Great Northern Railway. To ensure that the rails remained flat and straight, excavators dug deep into the earth along the desired route and filled the void with 27 dump-truck loads of stone track ballast.