Story of the Building
This building is a celebration of the tree. These wonderful plants:
- give us clean oxygen to breath,
- they filter our air,
- they trap water in the soil,
- they provide a shelter and home for thousands of different species in the forest.
- They give us wood to keep us warm and to build our homes.
Most of the woods used in the construction of this building are local species. We hope you enjoy viewing these different woods and that you will take a moment to reflect on how important trees are to our very existence.
At the same time, this building is a tribute to the Maritime barn, an architectural heritage that is quickly disappearing from our landscape. The barns built in the 19th and early 20th centuries are a perfect marriage of utility and aesthetic. We hope that their value will be better recongnized.
The outside of the building is shiplapped cedar boards. It is roofed with clear cedar shingles. The two large posts supporting the floor are cut from a large black ash that was growing on the property. The main beams and joists are made of local white and red spruce. The subfloor of the second floor is made of one inch spruce boards and the finished floor is hemlock. Most of the door and window trim is sugar maple. The wide board ceiling is spruce.
The stair treads are made of local red oak. The balusters are cut from 'Curly' pear, a variety of Siberian pear found here at the nursery. The lower hand rail is made from native red maple and the upper handrail is made from cedar. The bottom and middle newel posts are made of apple.
The bar top is made of sugar maple from Elgin. The holes that you see were made when the tree was tapped for making maple syrup. Gradually, fungus moves in to stain the wood above and below the holes. The base of the bar and cash area are yellow birch plywood and the frame is cut from curly maple. Much of the shelving and table tops are cut from yellow birch.
The vanity in the smaller bathroom is made of cedar with a spalted, (infected by fungus), beech. The mirror frame is bird's eye maple. The larger bathroom vanity is made of sugar maple with a beech top. The mirror is a split yellow birch board.
We hope you will take time to wander through the building and to admire the grains of these wonderful trees that we harvest for our use. We owe them so much. It makes planting a new tree that much more meaningful.