TFG Events & Workshops

Laura Saeger

Christian & Son, Inc., Office Manager

Laura J. Saeger is a founding member of the Preservation Trades Network, Friends of Ohio Barns, and the Timber Framers Guild. Her educational background includes Kent State University and Akron University, both in Ohio. She and her husband Rudy R. Christian have worked as adjunct professors at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. She has been involved with running numerous workshops and conferences. Laura’s focus on timber framing began in 1982.

Laura’s professional experience as Office Manager of Christian & Son, Inc., includes the reconstruction of the historic “Big Barn” at Malabar Farm State Park near Mansfield, Ohio, and the relocation of the 19th-century Crawford Horse Barn in Newark, Ohio. These projects featured “hand raisings” which were open to the public and attracted a total of 130,000 interested spectators. She was also part of a crew of timber framers at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival Masters of the Building Arts Program in the recreation and raising of an 18th-century carriage house frame on the Mall in Washington, DC. Roy Underhill’s “Woodright’s Shop” filmed the event for PBS and Roy participated in the raising. Christian & Son’s work includes working with a team of specialists to relocate Thomas Edison’s #11 laboratory building from the Henry Ford Museum to West Orange, New Jersey, where it was originally built, and the restoration of the Mansfield Blockhouse, a hewn log structure built by the United States military in 1812. During the summer of 2006, Laura, her son Carson, and her husband Rudy were the lead instructors and conservation specialists for the Field School at Mt. Lebanon Shaker Village while the 1838 timber frame granary was restored. From 2015 to 2017, Laura & Rudy worked as consultants to the World Monuments Fund in the restoration of the Golden Palace Monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar. In the summer of 2017, they reconstructed the historic timber frame belfry at Glendale Cemetery in Akron, Ohio, in collaboration with Stan Hywet Hall, and recently completed restoration of the timber frame roof system of the 1721 Jean Hasbrouck House on Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, New York. Christian & Son, Inc., recently restored the 1861 Detroit Farmers Market which is now reconstructed in Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum.

www.planexus.com

Presentation

Working with Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford
Laura and Rudy will take you through the decades of projects working with Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford. You will learn about the relocation of Thomas Edison's Laboratory #11 to Greenfield Village by Henry Ford after Edison's death. You will also learn about the Detroit Farmers Market that was originally built on Cadillac Square in Detroit, then relocated to the Belle Isle in the Detroit River, and eventually relocated to Greenfield Village. Come join them as they walk you through working in collaboration with numerous tradespeople helping save some important historic structures.