COYLE — Philip Sax was walking his dog three years ago when he stopped to talk to Pat Robinson. Learning that Robinson was starting a food bank at the community center, he thought, “What can I do?”
“I had this idea of making a few dozen bagels,” he said.
What Sax has done on 80 occasions since that meeting is get up at 3 a.m., start a fire in the brick oven in his outdoor bake house and bake five dozen bagels, delivering them to the food bank by 9 a.m.
The bagels are just a sample of the food that Sax, who lives completely off the grid, has made for friends, family and the community since he built the oven.
“It all kind of just evolved,” Sax said. “Making the oven bigger led to big bakes, big events.”
Originally from Asbury Park, N.J., Sax left school at 16, joined the Army at 18 and served in Vietnam.
He spent the next three decades sailing around the world, but after a dismasting incident nearly cost him his life, he moved to the North Olympic Peninsula in 1999.
Looking for a place with privacy, he bought 10 wooded acres in Coyle, where he built a one-room house using hand tools.
“Everything is in the round or rough-cut,” he said of the wood structure.
It was at a friend’s party that he first tasted bread fresh out of a wood-fired brick oven, Sax said.
Wanting to build one as a center for his own outdoor entertaining, he went to the Jefferson County Library and checked out books on basic masonry and brick ovens.
He spent the next several years researching pyrodynamics, Sax said, then started building the 6-by-8-foot oven, chimney and the open, octagonal-roofed shelter.
“The whole project took three years,” he said.
A solstice party Sunday was the largest bake he’s done since he completed the oven, Sax said.
His first bake, on New Year’s Day 2006, was 20 loaves of bread for the gathering after a memorial service for Caidan Hendricks, a friend and employer who died in a car accident.
Sax also baked pies, pastries, cookies and brownies for a community gathering to thank Karen Alls for the work she had done for the Coyle Community Center.
Last Thanksgiving, he cooked a 35-pound turkey and 35-pound salmon in the oven for 70 guests.
“I don’t consider that a party, just a big dinner,” Sax said.
Sunday’s bake, number 134, was the first time he has tried calzones.
Friends John Shelley and Sarah Kirkegaard of Quilcene lent a hand, making a batch of dough for the second baking.
Other friends, including Jessie Johnson of Seattle, helped make the first batch, which was filled with curried chicken and smoked salmon.
Sax also baked apple, cherry and mixed fruit turnovers. Friends and neighbors brought salads and platters of food, and Sax’s sister, Ally Becker-Nowicky, prepared a salmon with crab stuffing.
“The theme of the party is stuffed food,” Sax said.
Brian Burrough cleared the area next to the bake house, where tables made of slabs of wood were set up.
After the first wave of guests arrived and ate, John Soigni, who had brought his bass fiddle, and Bill Marlow, on guitar, started playing music under the bake house shelter, joined by other guests who had brought banjos, flutes and drums.
The gathering was the fruition of the project, Sax said, to provide a space for friends to gather to enjoy music and good food.
“Life is a one-time deal,” Sax said. “To enjoy life daily on this planet is my goal.
“I want to be who I am and live one minute at a time.”
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County reporter-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
