Passionate Pursuits

Dean Bennett takes his organic gardening pretty seriously. He's against using pesticides; he favors llama poop over chemical fertilizers, uses drip irrigation to conserve water, and even prefers a push mower to a gas-powered version. “They put out a lot of emissions, and the push mower is quiet,” says Bennett, who owns Dean Bennett Design and Construction in Castle Rock, Colo. “So much of what I do all week is noisy, I don't want any more noise on the weekend. It's kind of fun. The neighborhood kids make fun of me.”

The neighborhood grown-ups, on the other hand, often stop by to ask him about his displays of wildflowers, annuals, vegetables, and herbs. “We have a big front yard, which is fun for me because I like showing off a little,” Bennett says. “It was fun all summer. Almost every day, someone would stop at the house and they'd want to talk about all the flowers.”

His love of gardening started in childhood. His family always had a big garden while he was growing up. And he appreciates the balance it offers his life from the stress of building houses. “There are no deadlines,” he notes. “The garden does what it's going to do. I like the payoff, too.”

Bennett's passion for gardening naturally extends into cooking—“Anything I grow, I get to eat,” he says—and virtually every meal he cooks incorporates something from his garden. He's terrible with recipes and won't use them, he says. Instead, he starts from scratch for every meal, making it up as he goes along. “I love to see what's [available] and figure out what I'm going to do with it,” he says. “It's very artistic.”

NATURAL HIGH: Houston-based builder Lambert Arceneaux has been climbing mountains since his college days. The concentration and commitment required to succeed as a builder leave little time for anything else, he says; climbing fills a deep need in his life. “When you leave work at the end of the day, you really need a grand, great challenge to let you know you're alive.”

Without question, his favorite ingredient is tomato. “I live for those,” he says. “If I could grow nothing else, it would be tomatoes.”

Ever since Lambert Arceneaux was a kid growing up on a farm in East Liberty, Texas, he's been fascinated with climbing. “We'd drive by hills, and I'd always want to get out of the car and go climb them,” he says.

As a college student, he discovered Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, a pink granite dome that rises 425 feet from the ground, and in 1989 started a rock-climbing club called the Texas Mountain Raiders that is still active today. But Arceneaux, who is president and CEO of Houston-based Allegro Builders, had his sights set much, much higher.

Since his college days, he's climbed regularly in Colorado. The two biggest highlights have been his ascents on Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount McKinley in Alaska, the tallest peak in North America at 20,320 feet and “pretty much the coldest mountain in the world,” he says.

Most people who climb Mount McKinley go up and come down along the same route, Arceneaux says. It's easier because it allows climbers to stow supplies along the way on the ascent and pick them up on the way back. His team traversed McKinley, which involved climbing up one route and coming down the treacherous back side. The park service no longer permits climbers to traverse because of the danger, Arceneaux says.

The 30-day expedition was, by far, the most physically and mentally demanding thing he's ever done. “I weighed 177 when I left and I came back [weighing] 140,” he says. “I had a size 28 waist. It was ridiculous.”

The mountain he would really like to climb is the 22,841-foot Aconcagua, in Argentina. The ultimate challenge, of course, is the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest (29,035 feet), in Nepal and Tibet. He sees those kinds of events as something he'll do once every 10 years, in between regular climbs at a vacation home in Durango, Colo., at about 9,000 feet.

The attraction, he says, is the challenge and the focus required to achieve it.

“It's like riding a motorcycle,” he says. “You can't take your hands off because you have to pay attention to the road. I know I'm alive because I'm out there. ... I guess I have an agenda with my life, including things I don't know if I'll ever be able to accomplish, including Mount Everest. It drives me to do better, to do more.”