NaturalBuildingOrg seeks to build rapport with veterans, community

NaturalBuildingOrg is a nonprofit organization that promotes natural building of homes for the purpose of both creating a home, and also creating bonds between veterans and their communities, with other veterans and within themselves.

While the organization has volunteers, it also has two constants in friends founder Cat Taylor and director of operations Yogita Taylor – no relation.

NaturalBuildingOrg hopes to expand their operations in the coming years and invites the community to its annual fundraiser, a masquerade ball and silent auction, to be held from 6-10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16 at The Legacy Event Center in Hughes Springs. The event is a star-studded event with master of ceremonies Russell Holmes, host of HGTV’s Garage Rehab and Renovation Impossible. Jessie Mapes, who starred in the film Urban Cowboy, will perform with the Blended Country band.

Tickets are $40 and are available at Hughes Springs City Hall and Tooters or by calling (817) 812-4909. Proceeds go directly to the organization.

“We don’t take a salary,” Cat Taylor said. “Everything goes back to the organization and our mission. We want to purchase UTVs to get folks around the property for our workshops and we want to improve on the grounds, including walkways and bathrooms to make it easier for people who visit to have and get to where they need.

NaturalBuildingOrg started in 2018 with Cat Taylor building a home just outside of Hughes Springs for herself and her late husband Jackie, who was a Vietnam veteran.

“It was accidental as far as being a nonprofit,” Cat Taylor said. “I discovered natural building and had the dream of building my own cob house. In doing so, I saw how it affected my husband, who served in Vietnam and was extremely damaged by Agent Orange and had severe depression and PTSD.

“I saw how helping me affected him, even though he could only do a little bit, but it totally changed him for good. His self-worth came back and he felt he had a purpose again. Living on a disability check limits your housing abilities, so being able to put it all together and teaching natural building, it gives people the opportunity to learn how to do it and it also serves as a therapy while they do it. The end result is that they have a possibility of having a mortgage-free home. It doesn’t mean you have to live offgrid. My home has electric, water, septic and garbage disposals.”

In addition to the therapeutic aspects, Cat Taylor said she’s seen how it’s also helped schools and youth groups who have come out and experienced natural building for themselves.

“We have kids coming out and they’re putting their phones down and learning trades and getting outside,” she said. “They’re building clubhouses and they don’t always have the opportunities or the time to learn trades. When I was in school, we had things like auto shop and other chances to learn trades.”

Natural building promotes using natural materials to build.

“You’re gearing away from toxic chemicals or formaldehydes and getting back to the way things were built in the past,” she said. “You use what you have available on or near your property and in your area.”

Cob - a mixture of clay, sand and straw, is typically used in natural building. Cat Taylor said cob and adobe are similar materials used in natural building.

“With adobe, you take that mixture, dry it out and create bricks, then you build with the bricks. Cob means “lump,” and you take it and lump it up to where you’re sculpting your house.”

Straw bales, timber framing and log builds are other materials used in natural building, which does not necessarily mean non-natural materials cannot be used.

“You try to use natural materials as much as you can, but there will be exceptions,” Cat Taylor said. “Maybe when you get to the inside walls, instead of using clay plasters, you use sheetrock, but for the majority of the build, you stick with natural, more inexpensive materials.”

Cat Taylor said natural building could also mean designing a home in a way that feels natural to each builder or resident.

“You’re designing your home to fit your needs,” she said. “I changed my home hundreds of times while I was building it. If I’m short, I don’t have to build tall cabinets I can’t reach.”

Both Cat and Yogita Taylor said the process of natural building lends itself well to their organizational mission of helping veterans.

“Part of our program is empowering veterans to help veterans,” Cat Taylor said. “We have volunteer veterans on our staff. Veterans relate to other veterans; they’ve been through things that we as civilians could never understand. They need that brotherhood. We have a weekend warrior project that’s nothing but veterans and first responders – even the staff. It gives them a chance to do it with other veterans. It seems to help the ones that have isolated themselves from society.

“I found my husband in 2010 and he’d given away all of his possessions except his gun. This was huge for him and we’ve had several veterans come through and their wives or parents have told us that they’d never seen them as happy as they were. They come back broken and lost and this gives them something positive. You can buy a house, but someone else built that. To hand-make your home gives you a sense of pride. It’s more than just a house; you’re leaving a legacy. It’s part of a family.”

Yogita Taylor, a native of Scotland, went through the natural building workshop in 2021 and found herself similarly drawn to NaturalBuildingOrg’s mission.

“At that time, I was looking for change in my life,” she said. “I did the workshop and had a lot of fun and I was meant to move on somewhere else, but Cat said, “Why don’t you just stay here?” My daughter came to the workshop with me and said, “You should stay here. This has been good for you.” I stayed and we’ve been ticking things off our project list ever since.”

The program is also looking to expand with the addition of several programs, including yoga. Yogita Taylor is a certified Hatha yoga instructor and certified to work with PTSD.

“I took a 21-week yoga teaching training course in India and it transformed me; I look at life differently,” she said. “Not to take away from anything, but you see things differently and not really knowing where you fit. This is a path I never would have expected. It’s been an adventure.”

Both Yogita and Cat Taylor realize their life paths have mirrored the mission of the organization. Both lost their husbands and underwent personal changes and want to take the lessons learned and help others. Cat Taylor previously worked in law enforcement and construction and Yogita Taylor previously worked in IT.

“If you had told either one of us 10 or 20 years ago that we would be in the woods on a hill playing in the mud in our 50s, I know I would have told you that you were crazy,” Cat Taylor said. “To end up here was completely, but pleasantly unexpected. I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

NaturalBuildingOrg is also in the process of starting a program for youth ages 12-18 known as the Mud Daubers. Membership is $35 and includes priority registration for community events and workshops at Cob Hill, a t-shirt and reduced rates for Cob Hill events.

To register, visit www.cobhillnaturalbuilding.com. “We’ve had schools and homeschool programs come out and they have a ball; they don’t want to leave,” Cat Taylor said. “Seeing that is phenomenal and we want to offer a program for them to come out and build for the community. There’s so much they can do and learn. I know so many veterans who have skills they can pass on to these kids. It helps the kids and helps the veterans and pass on these skills that are getting lost. The kids gain knowledge and have fun and the veterans have a purpose.”

Both Taylors said the community has embraced their mission.

“I want the locals to come out and see what we’re doing,” Cat Taylor said. “When my husband and I moved to Hughes Springs, our property was remote. We’d go to a restaurant once a week; they had a band and my husband loved them. We’d see them whispering and pointing and behind my back, I had heard I was the “crazy mud dauber lady.” Discovery Channel came out and filmed me building my house and all of a sudden, I was popular and everyone wanted to sit with me. I don’t blame them for being leery at first, and now the community has many of our biggest fans. They’re great people and I couldn’t have picked a better place to land.”

Both Taylors hope their mission helps to erase some of the stigma around natural building.

“Cob Hill is a magical place,” Yogita Taylor said. “Everyone that comes there, you see them light up and they bond for that short time together.”

“A lot of people look at the term natural building and think, ‘Eww, dirt house,’” Cat Taylor said. “Give it a chance and look at it with an open mind. My home has amenities. It’s not just ‘hobbit houses’ – hobbit