Dan McManus began working with stones and hardscape at a very young age.

In 2001, at the age of 14, Dan began an apprenticeship during the summer months with a local stonemason Tim Smith of TD Smith Stone Masonry.  Smith, a trainee through an apprenticeship program himself, had learned masonry while building the north tower of St. John’s Cathedral. He carried on this legacy of training young stonemasons like Dan, and through CHF Design, Dan also trains a number of aspiring stonemasons and apprentices to carry on the tradition and pass on this this age old timeless skill.

As a young stonemason, Dan was introduced to his close friend and mentor Johannes Mathiessen in 2005.  Mathiessen was a traveling sculpture and landscape artist who specialized in sacred landscapes, and parks for a spiritual growth and soul enrichment.

Dan traveled with Mathiessen in numerous parts of the globe, and worked on large scale landscape installations together with his mentor, and many other young aspiring artists. Johannes Mathiessen was a traveling community art project himself, and inspired Dan in all aspects of creative design, as well as stewardship over the sacredness of the Earth and its resources.

Out of the inspirations of this work across many parts of the world, Dan felt called to steward the type of community endeavor, creative rethinking of today’s social problems, and care for a sacred piece of land out of which an initiative could grow. An initiative that would support a better world, an initiative that would bring people together, an initiative that would bring people closer to the Earth.  An initiative which would feed and nourish and offer security to the community, and above all a place to learn, grow, and hold all that is dear and sacred in a space to thrive within.

This evolved to be a farm named Common Hands Farm.

In 2011 Dan scaled back greatly in his masonry to only 1-2 projects a year.  Together with his partner at the time Tess Parker he began to create the first three iterations of Common Hands Farm. Building a Farm enterprise up from the ground, on borrowed soil, each time losing tenure of the land and through heartbreak and back ache, starting again, and again.  But perseverance, and community endured. Partnerships have been recreated. And community has grown and rallied around this blessed little farm.

The farm’s adversaries are great. We live in a world, and an economy, where the very existence of small scale sacred land stewardship, and true connection to nourishment and community is under siege by big industries, from adversarial politics, and from the increasing financial hardship of existing within a failing economy.

So in 2020 during the pandemic, as the casts of everything farm related began to skyrocket, Common Hands Farm and Dan along with his wife Keri and their children found a permanent home and bought property.

Now as a property owner, along with the continuation of growing 10+ acres of food for members of the community Dan and Keri looked for ways to make this possible.  It became possible by bringing out the old masonry tools and beginning to take on a few masonry jobs at first, just to supplement the farming income, and over time it grew into a consistent business, raising funds for the growth of our farm

As it has grown, CHF Design Co LLC has built a team of really talented stonemasons, along with dedicated apprentices, and then has developed a variety of other skill sets, including everything from large scale hardscaping, excavation, driveway, construction, entire hardscape renovation, basement and house site drainage and so much more.

All while running a farm seven days a week!

Through needing to figure out many details of landscapes in 3-D, height, grades, material quantities, logistical layouts, and procedures, and making it work within the right budget for a clients, Dan saw a growing need for custom stone design.  Even with a third-party landscape designer, or architect providing plans, often many details of the construction of a hard scape/space need to be translated into many details of stone installation and Dan began offering sketch, design and rendering services to help clients envision their project.  In turn it helped better inform all members of the CHF team who are working on the project, and interface with third-party designers or contractors to help them, understand the elements of the stone installation in more detail, before and while it is installed.

That’s one version of Dan’s biography.  The one that is intricately tied to the story of Common Hands, the farm, the masonry, the community.

Throughout the early years of Dan’s masonry, hardscape, and artist career, he received a BA from Goddard College with a focus on community, social models, alternative cooperative, economics, and paired this with many other workshops and independent studies, including a gap year program at Emerson College in Sussex UK, where among many other things, Dan studied the basics of biodynamic farming PDC (permaculture design certification) course through Green Phoenix and has attended many other  workshops, conferences, and gathering/initiatives as either a teacher, organizer or in attendance to further his ever growing thirst for earth based knowledge

Throughout this time, Dan has also done work or led projects in multiple states, including California, Puerto Rico, Texas Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, as well as multiple other countries together with Johannes Mathiessen such as Australia, Austria, Germany, Greece, Croatia, and the UK.

Dan plans to continue to grow, learn, and develop as an earth artist, a stonemason, and a creative community builder… building space, growing food, and bringing hearts and minds together wherever this work may take him.