The young man who built a skate park around his house and offers accommodation for foreign fans

Fernando Recalt en Red House Bowl (redhousebowl)

For Fernando Recalt (46), getting on skateboarding is synonymous with freedom. There is no day that starts and ends badly for him because riding on wheels and performing on the board automatically gives him happiness. That’s why, after separating and returning to his childhood home, skating was his refuge.

His childhood home, with a striking red color on the front, is surrounded by undulations of cement, which form a circuit, which ends in the bowl that the entrepreneur maintains with great care every day. This is one of the most attractive tests in skateboarding and is a figure that simulates a pool with rounded edges to get on and off the board.

When you see the photos, the first question is what it does when it rains. “This is nice and fun, but it takes a lot of work to maintain,” says Fernando, the creator of “Red House Bowl”, the center of attraction of the neighborhood that brings together people of all ages, from 6-year-olds to those in their fifties and a little more.

“It is incredible to see people my age enjoying this because we are the generation that in the 80s, when the first wave of skateboarding craze in Argentina was, we learned to ride a skateboard, making ramps with wooden boards,” says the man who today fully enjoys this activity.

The incredible Red House Bowl (redhousebowl) track

The house is also published on the Skatebnb page, an accommodation site for lovers of this sport from all over the world with spaces for skateboarding. There he offers it with the video that is published in this note. The objective is for them to come from other parts of the world to enjoy the undulations that surround the chalet in the southern suburbs. The publication has only a short time and so far it has not had any tourist visits.

With absolute simplicity, Fernando summarizes what skateboarding means to him: “If one day when you wake up very angry, you skate for a while, it is not necessary to have a skatepark, just grab a board and skate down the street; That only changes your mood. You see things differently and not to mention the feeling of freedom that, a little wind in your face, and those movements do you so much good. Just being able to go a little faster than the others makes me happy.”

Fernando was born in Temperley, moved, started his family and returned to his city, to the house in which he grew up, in the heart of the English neighborhood of that suburban town. “Until 2019 I lived in Capital, but I returned when I separated. It was a personal need to have a place to skate in the area and be able to share it with my children, so I began to plan the project of having my own track,” he says and admits: “That kid from the 80s would never have I imagined that the 46-year-old would have his own court, the bowl, and that this would become what it is.”

The first part of what later “became big” began with a wooden ramp, but he saw that there was space and he took the risk of making the pot he longed for, he wanted a girl. He started building it during the pandemic and with that time to do something new.

Red House Bowl, the house with a pot and a skate park that has spaces that are rented and is published on the site https://skatebnbs.com/

“The following year I was able to complete the design with the undulations, the ramps in the hallway and in the front of the house. The neighbors did not understand what was happening until it began to take shape a little more and some began to realize what it was about,” he recalls.

This design, he says, is unique in the country. “It has different heights throughout the pot, to that I added a vertical extension in the party wall, the hallway and the front is a pump track, which serves to gain speed. I added space to it and now I look at the only piece of garden I have… I could expand a little more,” she says, laughing.

Although the place is now filled with people, many go to take classes. It started as a personal and family project, but later he decided to open it to the neighbors. “First the acquaintances came and since they asked me to give classes to their children, I didn’t hesitate and now I teach children from the age of 6; to adults (I have groups of 20-year-old kids), to girls… Anyone who wants can take classes,” he says. In addition, the space opens other days during the afternoon for those who want to use the track.

Fernando and his lifelong friends

“I have the best neighbors in the world: they never complained about this, although it makes noise, but we don’t bother because we are here until 8 p.m.,” he explains.

The only complex thing is to keep it dry and clean daily. “Generally the bowls have a drainage system, but I had the crazy idea of ​​not filling it with water in the summer and having a double item: a skate pot and a pool… But I don’t fill it because it kills me, everyone wants to skate! ! Beyond the joke, it is difficult to remove the water. I have a kind of motor to dry it. Then, what’s left, with a dryer and a floor cloth… how the pools are emptied,” she says.

Excited, he returns to childhood: “I can’t help but remember the years when I was in seventh grade and since I was always with my brother, who is older, I used to be with the older kids, and there I met his band, who listened to punk. and rock, and they were very linked to skateboarding. Now this world is having a resurgence, like it happened 10 years ago,” he says.

The start of Red House Bowl

“It was always something quite underground, in fact if you go to the skateparks it is a different atmosphere. Now it is an Olympic sport and that is good because it has recognition, but I raise the issue of subculture, of the group from self-improvement, of learning from each other, like in the 80’s. Now many are made to have more views on Instagram. The important thing is that the kids continue skating and the adults too,” he concludes.

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