Past Projects

Effinger Community Gazebo

rendezvous n. a coming together, a meeting at an appointed place or time

Rendezvous '98 is the story of an unusual coming together of students, timberframers, and townspeople who worked as one to build something of strength, beauty and utility. There couldn't be any more disparate groups involved: the mostly scruffy, mostly mature members of the Timber Framers Guild working alongside the shorn-of-hair, youthful, obedient VMI cadets. Into the mix came ten members of the Massachusetts College of Art, mostly urban, mostly twenty-somethings, and mostly students of sculpture, photography, and other fine arts. To support and feed and fete us all, the townspeople of Effinger supplied donations aplenty; they donated materials, hard work, hospitality, and most importantly appreciation for this newest addition to their community life. They and the children of Effinger Elementary School injected an enthusiasm and true community spirit that we will remember long after our return home.

The project began with the residents of Effinger, a community about seven miles west of Lexington, Virginia, and Col. Grigg Mullen of the nearby Virginia Military Institute. Effinger wanted a gazebo as part of their playground renovation, and Col. Mullen wanted a repeat of last year's successful joint Guild-VMI project that created the trebuchet (now being featured in a national ad campaign, but that's another story). The Guild took on the project, but many people made it happen, as you will read in the following pages. For three days in April, we cut the beams, and on the fourth, we raised it on a glorious sunny Virginia day, to the wonder of those who first witnessed a raising. Among those first witnesses were the children in the nearby school, who with signed pegs in hand inserted them into the beams. They were an enthusiastic reminder of our legacy to their generation.

Those who helped make the Gazebo a reality

The finished structure, as of 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 7