After erecting the Reuben Waite barn, they began thinking about how best to use the space. Certainly, it would serve as a stunning showcase for prospective clients, but Sarah also envisioned it as a dynamic gathering place. That idea led directly to the second part of the company’ s mission: not only to preserve New England’ s heritage through saving timber-frame structures and the material culture found within them, but also to preserve the wisdom and knowledge those builders possessed and pass it on to future generations.
In the spring, they host community workdays, including the planting of broomcorn. In the fall, they harvest it and bring in an instructor to teach natural broom-making. They also run a black ash basket-making class and have re-erected an old blacksmith shop that they brought over from Benson, VT. Says Sarah,“ Watching kids try out the various blacksmith tools, the massive bellows—-it’ s amazing.”
The workshop hosts timber-framing classes, of course, but also a poetry reading series.“ This winter we had Poet Laureate Bianca Stone in here, and it was wonderful,” Luke said.
For their building team and apprentices, the programming is equally intentional.“ Once or twice a month we host what we’ ve come to call‘ Fun Fridays,’” Luke said.“ In the winter, for instance, we fire up the wood-burning stove in our workshop. We usually start with some reading time around the stove. Then we’ ll work on some woodworking skill— maybe hand-cut dovetail work or steam-bending. Often the participants’ families will come for a big lunch, and then afternoons provide time for members to work on various personal projects.”
What the Old Timber Frames Still Teach
When Luke talks about barns, he does not speak of them as static relics. To him, they are records of past builders’ knowledge. He demonstrated what an older woodsman or framer could discern simply by studying a tree and its wood: how it grew, what the weather had done to it, how it would shrink and swell, how it ought to be cut and joined.
For example, older framers offset peg holes so that, when the wooden peg was driven through a mortise-and-tenon joint, it bent slightly and then pulled the joint tighter as the wood dried and shrank. He also explained how these builders were often looking to the future. Even though a round wooden peg driven through the mortise-and-tenon pieces reached its maximum strength once it met the other side of the mortise beam, those older framers often bored the hole— and then hammered the peg— through the other side of the entire joint for a reason: so that someone coming along much later could find the end of that peg, drive it back out, and repair the joint if needed.
CHRIS MOTALLINNI PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Homebuilding + Construction Management
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