Flute artisan finds a home for his craft at the Senior Smart House in Sunrise

The sound is beautiful and haunting. It recalls ancient times when music wasn't amplified and floating out of 10,000 electronic devices, from cellphones to toasters. It is the music of handmade flutes, and Igor Sedor makes them in his workshop on Frenchman Mountain.

To call them "handmade" is a bit of a misnomer. Sedor's shop is bristling with power tools, each serving a specific purpose. He wasn't always so well equipped.

"When I started, I didn't have all these," Sedor said. "But you make it work with what you've got."

These days, the process is still long and exacting but a bit quicker. He walks around his shop proudly pointing out flutes in various states of completion and the unusual tools he has collected.

"Before I had this piece, I'd have to cut off the end of the flute," Sedor said, pointing out a specialty lathe head designed to hold the hole end of the flute. "With this, I can shape the flute around the bore."

The flutes aren't simply instruments; they're individual works of art that sell for $50 to more than $300.

Sedor frequently works with multiple woods to create a piece with different tones and grains. Sometimes he'll build two identical flutes out of two different woods and swap pieces between the two to create sister instruments that are almost photo negatives of each other.

"I taught myself how to do it all," Sedor said. "It was a lot of trial and error, but now I know enough that I'm showing other people how to make them."

One of those woodworking students is Bill Bolding of Las Vegas. He and Sedor are part of a flute circle that meets monthly at a private home in Henderson.

"I've been building them since 2007," Bolding said. "I'm the only guy that does them in color. If you see a handmade flute around here that's painted, I probably made it."

On a Saturday afternoon in October four members of the flute circle got together at Teri Lyn Vander Heiden's Senior Smart House, which is under construction at 555 Rossmore Drive. Vander Heiden is building the house as a prototype for senior-friendly technology and has been holding a number of low-key events to welcome people to visit the project. The flute circle members were delighted by the acoustics of the great room.

Sedor's two-room flute shop is on the Senior Smart House property. One room is for construction, and the other is a display room.

"I went to high school with Teri," Sedor said. "Before I saw her at a high school reunion six years ago, I hadn't seen her since I was 17."

Vander Heiden invited Sedor to visit her in Las Vegas. Before the visit was over, she had invited him to move here. He swaps room and board for helping out with some of the household chores the sometimes wheelchair-bound Vander Heiden can't always attend to herself.

When she found out about his flute making, she became his biggest booster.

"She lent me the money to buy better tools," Sedor said. "When she started building the Senior Smart House, she added the workshop to her plans."

Vander Heiden recently added another chapter to Sedor's story. Inspired by his befriending and feeding of a neighborhood roadrunner, she wrote the children's book "Igor & His Roadrunner Buddy" and brought on local artist Lida Kilchenko to illustrate it. They met when Vander Heiden hired Kilchenko to paint a mural at the Senior Smart House.

"I really feel like I've accomplished something here," Vander Heiden said. "It was such a cute story. I just had to tell it."

Vander Heiden found a publisher and plans to launch the book with a signing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Senior Smart House. Sedor plans to be on hand, and they hope to have several members of the flute circle performing, too.

For more information, visit echoquestflutes.blogspot.com or lvseniorsmarthouse.com.

Contact Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.