Brian Challis, the man commissioned by Jazz owner Larry Miller to build and sculpt the John Stockton and Karl Malone statues, has had one art class in his entire life and can't remember anything about it.

He has been a full-time sculptor for only seven years, mostly doing abstract work, and has done only a couple of large statues in his life, both of them of his children. He has spent most of his professional life building stairways.

"It was definitely a leap of faith by Larry," says Challis, a longtime friend and former neighbor of Miller's.

Maybe not. After spending time with Challis, 54, you're convinced this man could build an airplane out of dirt and rocks. He's a genius with his hands. He built his own lathe because he wanted to learn to turn wood, and he was just a teenager.

"He's extremely creative," says Miller. "He does beautiful work. I've seen him do crazy things, like making pliers out of a matchstick."

Challis also made a functioning pair of pliers out of a single block of wood with 10 cuts without removing any wood just for fun.

He has carved a caged octahedron out of a single block of wood.

"He's happiest when he's got a project," says his wife, June.

Challis made the entryway floor of his house with one-inch-thick slices of white oak that he sawed off the ends of timbers he salvaged from a mine. He made the family room floor by cutting 9,000 slices from the wood of 250 apple trees. It took him 18 months.

"He's unique," says June.

Challis couldn't just buy a gazebo — he built one that's as large as a starter home next to his house, fashioned from Honduras mahogany and pine.

He couldn't just buy a bed like the rest of us — he made one out of cherry wood, with thick posts and side rails and brass grillwork.

He couldn't just buy a spec house — he had to design one that looks like it's straight off the set of Harry Potter. Sitting in the scrub oak of an upscale private Sandy neighborhood, it has the feel of a castle, with rock facing and turrets.

It has spiral stairways he built himself and balconies and secret passageways leading up to the attic and down to the basement and several points in between. He directs a visitor to a bookcase and asks him to turn his back for a moment. When the visitor looks again, the bookcase has opened to reveal a small room, which leads to more secret passages. Not that they're a secret anymore. The neighbor kids knock on the door asking to see the passageways.

"Our kids love the house," says June. "They don't want us to sell it."

The front door is a 400-pound concave slab of 3 1/2-inch-thick oak that took three men to hang.