▲ Kraemer Tower

Kraemer Tower

A fire lookout tower at the top of Dave and Barb Sullivan’s property in Polk County, Oregon. The design is documented at lookouttowers.org as the Pedee Fire Lookout Tower. Construction paused years ago partway through the septic install. This is the coordination home for finishing it — a Dave-and-Barb-and-Eli project.

Dave and Barb Sullivan in front of a flowering tree, spring 2025

Dave and Barb. Co-owners of the property; co-leads of the project; in roughly that order.

The team

Dave Sullivan owns the property with Barb Sullivan and leads design and funding for the tower. Barb is the day-to-day project manager — Eli reports to her on the build. Eli Kraemer (Barb’s grandson) leads construction planning and execution for both the septic completion and the tower build. Cody and Russell Richardson of Solid Rock Construction are advising on the septic completion. Polk County Environmental Health will inspect and sign off.

Eli plans to live in the tower once it’s done — see the Tower page for what that means for design and permitting.

Where we paused

Concrete septic tank being lowered into place, July 2022

The concrete tank was set in July 2022 and the lines never went in. The 2025 logging job by Cody and Russell provided the money to come back and finish.

The plan, in order

  1. Confirm where the septic permit stands with Polk County.
  2. Eli inventories what’s already installed and what materials are on hand.
  3. Cody and Russell walk the site and tell us what’s needed.
  4. Eli and Dave start the work.
  5. Cody and Russell come back and tell us what we got wrong.
  6. We finish the install.
  7. Polk County inspects.
  8. The tower build resumes under Eli’s planning and Barb’s oversight.

Why this site exists

So that everyone — Dave, Barb, Eli, Cody, Russell — sees the same picture of where we are, what’s been decided, what’s coming up, and what we still need to figure out. Photos, schedules, and decisions all live here. If it’s on the site, it’s the shared reality.

Once Phase II ships, the Contribute form lets all five of us add updates directly. Until then, drop notes into Dave’s inbox or Cowork picks them up.

Latest

The site itself is brand new (as of 2026-05-26). An email to Polk County Environmental Health went out that day asking about the septic permit status — after their reply, the schedule on the Schedule page gets real. The Tower page now reflects Eli’s intent to live in the tower and the Polk County permitting question that raises.