Dear Timber-framing Community Builders,
What a weekend we had! I’ve attached Andy DeVivo’s photograph of the group that raised the roof sometime around 5:00 Saturday afternoon. We actually took things a bit further before our 6:30 celebrations. Any who haven’t already seen it will want to view our house with the frame completed right up through the ridge pegging! This is a magnificent accomplishment by an extraordinary community.
Some of the volunteer timber framers, bakers, and musicians on Sat, Sept. 26.
I’ve reflected a great deal over the past months, but yesterday’s rainy post script to our gorgeous Saturday offered time to soak in our collective experience on Memorial Green since early May. We have over 100 people on my “timber framers” email list. We received major contributions, such as our logs from Bob Tyack, Nate Markham, and Doug LaChance, folks whom most of our builders never even met. We had visitors and passers-by from Miami, FL, Port Townshend, WA, Sausalito, CA and Munich, Germany stop by and chip in with hewing and peg making. We’ve seen exceptional commitments of time and passion from folks who’ve lost their jobs during this global economic downturn. One of our builders shared our progress with his ailing, but enthusiastic grandfather, from whose upstate New York barn he’d retrieved a broadax to use in Ipswich. The grandfather saw lots of photos his grandson sent, but passed away before the grandson stood pegging rafters on Saturday. There is a profound and boundless group spirit in our house which will endure beyond the life of even those stout timbers themselves.
I need to mention to all of you, as Bob Weatherall did Saturday evening to those assembled on the Green, the names of some carpenters who devoted literally hundreds of hours of their time to see this project through, and I should start with Bob himself, whose brainchild, along with Chris Doktor, Community Building Community was. Bob’s devotion to the town in which he was raised and its rich history is evident in how he lives his life. As Wendell Berry celebrates the Port William “membership” in his Kentucky novels and stories, so too does Bob live in service to his ideals and the people of his town and region. It can be easy –especially for builders in the throes of schedule pressures and the constant minutiae of any project – to forget the earliest work of those whose ideas and concepts framed all that followed, so I wish to consider together the research and careful thought Bob’s design of our Settlement House required. No settlement houses survive today in Ipswich, for they pre-date even the First Period homes that dot our streets, nor is there much written archival information about their design or construction methods. Bob studied the limited resources available, researched early 17th-century East Anglian timber framing techniques, and designed with the greatest commitment to historical accuracy and educated extrapolation. He gave us a building we can be proud of, and provided terrific cheer, leadership, and necessary reminders to us (certainly to me!) to adhere at all times to the standards and methods of our brethren from 1634.
Of the many who came to Memorial Green to pitch in over five months of building, a handful merit individual recognition for their exceptional commitments. I have to think that each of these folks have something between 100 and 200 hours into our house: Just Moller, Pete McDade, Dan Bates, Dave Carpenter, Jim Patrick, Peter Wales, Andy DeVivo, and Scott Howe. Without this core gang, we’d be looking at nothing but sills and floor joists right now. For their incredible passion for the project, pursuit of their personal and community ideals, and indefatigable physical efforts, we stand in grateful admiration. Several others whose contributions were various and crucial include Chris and Gail Doktor, John Freeman, David Bryant, Kerrie Bates, Terri Unger, and Nat Pulsifer. Our youth brigades were a critical component throughout the project and we thank all our student-builders, but the efforts and time commitments of Tom Josephson and Tom Sternberg stand out. For their wonderful construction of the community oven and even more fabulous creations from within it, we are deeply indebted to Meryl and Raina Baier. Finally, the musicians: Tony Brown, Andy Lindsay, Ben Staples, Grace Weatherall, Rebecca Brown, and an assortment of fly-by-nights. Thanks to you all for sharing your gifts and lifting the builders spirits throughout.
The danger in naming individuals is in the potential for omission. I hope I’ve not overlooked anyone, and wish to clarify, in closing, that it was the efforts of scores of you – most anonymous in this writing – that have made our project. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You will hear from me again, as we still await word about the future of our building. There’ll be more work to do as we clear out of the Green onto another site for the Settlement House. We’ll want and need more help from you. We’ll need to redistribute tools that have collected on site. In the meantime, I hope you’ll all take time to spend with our little house that came from a pile of logs. There’s no self-consciousness in communing personally with a building hand-wrought by a special town and its people, only pride in recalling that log pile and imagining what else we might do some other time with our collective spirits and energies. No challenge is too great for the people who gave to this project.
Happy 375thAnniversary to Ipswich and congratulations to all its Community Builders!
With the highest regard,
Jay
Esty Builders
10 Old Rowley Rd.
Newbury, MA 01951
mobile: (978) 500-1706
fax: (978) 358-7485
Community Building Community 