Bavarian Style Timberframing at the Fenton Inn right in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

The Bavarian Style of Half Timbering is what everyone imagines when they dream of old Europe or hear a fairytale.  There are a wide variety of different styles and techniques that allowed each house to be a little piece of art along a medieval street.  The Fenton Inn Bakery is in a more ornate style with traditional three coat stucco between the wooden frame.

 

 Across the street, the Butterfly house has a more organic flow to the tree like timbers with no shortage of butterflies on the doors and facade.

 

The end wall of Wilhelm's house has a more Iconic style of middle Bavarian region.  Often the most interesting houses in a town are not the most fancy, but the ones that must deal with an irregularly shaped lot where two streets branch apart.  It is hard to find more than one right angle in that house. 

 Half timbered houses often place diagonal braces under a window for added stability to the entire frame.  These braces can become quite elabate and often carry symbolic meaning to the house.  Any guess as to why the Wilhelm house has all those Ws?

 

 Wood in European villages was often more difficult to come by in more settled areas, thus it was not uncommon for a middle class home to have less than ideal timbers from trees that grew along streams and fence rows.  These trees would be shorter and curve towards the open spaces.  A little curve to the timbers if used correctly, can actually add to the stability of the house. 

Year round tubing and more fun, just five minutes away!

With the same tubes and lift used for the winter time snow tubing, Wintergreen has now opened a summertime tubing track on the same hill.  A plastic Astro-turf is sprayed with water and that makes the track run about as fast as in the winter time.  Choose from a half hour or full hour. It is all just a five minute drive from the Fenton Inn.

 Expect to get a little wet from the spray in a few spots.  At the end of the run, a long conveyor belt dubbed the "Magic Carpet"  brings you back up to the top with your tube.

 

 A look at the same hillside in winter with 8 lanes of tubing.  One of the ski slopes is off to the left.

 

For some off the ground excitement, they run two zip lines so you can race against your friend.  As with the tubing, it helps to have a little more gravity on your side to go faster.

 There they go!

There are also trampolines to catch some more air time and even try a flip with the help of the guide ropes and harness.  The large tent has a number of indoor games from a bucking robotic bull, skeet ball, pool to video games.

 

 Wintergreen also has mini golf, a perfect place to practice your putting game.

If you still have energy left, test your skills at the rock climbing tower.

 For those looking for an even bigger test, Wintergreen and other places nearby like the Devil's Backbone Brewery hosts a number of runs, bike races, mountain bike races and even the Spartan Races, that are open to all, but include the top professionals in the sport and is covered by one of the Sports Channels on TV.  As parking can be a hassle on race day, Fenton Inn is just couple hundred feet from the Wintergreen entrance building where you can catch a bus running up the mountain every few minutes on race day.  Enjoy a good nights rest and hearty breakfast at the Fenton Inn before your race, and for those in your group not racing, they can sleep in and take a wine tour during your times of personal struggle through burning hay bales and dragging tires through the mud.  After the race, meet back up for a couples massage in our spa room and exchange stories on the days excitement.

Monticello on the Fourth of July

Monticello on the Fourth of July

 While for most people, a visit to Monticello takes you back about 200 years (239 years this year to be exact), a trip to Monticello takes me back about 20 years to when I worked there.  A few things have changed since then for me, but the house is largely the same.  The two big poplar trees are gone now.  I don't doubt that they were old and getting unstable, but I rather liked them and they were the last of the trees from Jefferson's time.  I will say that I recalled scrubbing the entire roof balustrades with TSP and bleach one summer mostly because of the sap and pollen from the Poplars covered it with a greenish brown layer.  

I also noted a few minor changes, the entry doors were varnished mahogany outside, but have been painted white.  Perhaps more historic, but I think I liked the wood look.  They added a gift shop next to the stables.  I am hoping it is a temporary thing, though as I recall we used it for storing chairs back then.  It was once the wash room for clothes in Jefferson's time.  I am not sure when, but I was sure that the stalls had two partitions inside them and they were removed as well.  But over all I would say it is far better shape than prior to the restoration work of the 1990s when the most of the exterior wood working was either replaced or removed and restored.  Hats off to the current crew for keeping up with the painting.

Every fourth of July, some new Americans are sworn in on the West Lawn of Monticello.  It is moving to hear some of the new citizens speak about their journey to become a citizen.  Jefferson has a great international appeal.  He is not just one of the founding fathers of our country, but the inspirational icon of nearly every democratic movement in the world from the French Revolution to the fall of Communism, Jefferson's concept that the individual matters will continue to make his words live on for centuries. 

 One of the most interesting thing about working at Monticello was talking to some of the tourists that came from far away on a pilgrimage to see a man who has in some way inspired their life.  I was just a carpenter, not a tour guide, but would often get in conversations with people after their tour ended and they wandered the grounds, as if still hoping to see a glimpse of the man.  There are probably a dozen Jefferson related books written each year, and it is easy to find a bit of ones self in some aspect of Jefferson.  Each new president, regardless of political party, sites Jefferson, often misquoting out of context, but he is always there.  Portraits in the Oval office change each new election, but no one ever takes down Jefferson.  Even as his scandals revive centuries later, Jefferson still endures.  I mention all this at the picture of his garden because with some false humility, Jefferson often claimed himself a simple farmer.  He liked his garden and the nearby Mulberry row.  It was part of his concept of independence, the idea that he could grow his own food and make his own nails and build his own house.  He was however operating on a much larger scale than this pioneering concept of self sufficient living.  Jefferson was a CEO of a business that had over 200 people, mostly slaves.  He spent a tremendous amount on building Monticello, as president as well as taking on debts of other family members.  At the end of his life, the tobacco prices fell and like many people of his day, he died heavily in debt, only spared foreclosure during his lifetime due to his former role as president. 

Jefferson's early years of his marriage were spent here, in the 20x20 foot honeymoon cottage.  It was from here that he watched his grand house being built, started a family and wrote much of his political writing including the Declaration of Independence.  In this little one room house, big dreams for this country and his grand home were sketched out with pen and paper.  As you walk around the Fenton Inn, you will find some octagons and other design features I credit to Jefferson as well as the ability to dream a bit big as I drew up my plans for the Inn.  Thanks Mr Jefferson and Happy Fourth of July!

Night shadows.

Night life on Main Street is a play of shadows and lights that accentuate the many angles and architectural details.

 The workshop window has a museum of old historic tools that I have collected.  I like how the rippled glass in the round window casts shadows on the cobble stone street.

 

Below is a view of the tool collection.  The wooden one on the left is from Germany and was given to me by a carpenter who showed me his workshop where he made doors.  He spoke little English, but wood working is the same in any language.  The silver plane is a nickel plate 1914 Bailey and one of the newest planes.  Some on the far right are from the early 1700s.  I used some of them on restoration work at museums like Monticello, Poplar Forest, Stratford Hall and Colonial Williamsburg.  There are a number of octagonal rooms here at the Fenton Inn for which I credit Jefferson.  While reconstructing Poplar Forest, I read his actual letters to build the central skylight, however we did not recreate the leaks that Jefferson complained about on the original version.  I was the first person since John Hemmings 200 year before, to work for Monticello and Poplar Forest as a carpenter.  John Hemmings was notable as Jefferson's slave, brother of the more famous Sally Hemmings as well as being both literate and a master carpenter.  Monticello is just 45 minutes away from here and Poplar Forest is about an hour and a half.  Both are interesting views of Jefferson's true hobby of architecture.  Most of Poplar Forest was built while he was president, a much needed distraction from a turbulent presidency that juggled personal scandals far beyond any of our modern times and the brink of war with both France and then England.

 

The tower at night.  Every village needs a clock tower and a draw bridge.  The up lighting creates unique shadows under the arched entrance way.

 

The Bakery at night with the lights reflecting on the large glass windows in the back of the room.

One of a kind railings.

I came up with different patterns on each balcony while still sticking to the basic layout that is common in the Swiss Alps where we hiked.  I used cedar, as it is fairly durable out in the weather. 

 We went and found a few leaves from the nearby trees, in this case it is from a black oak and a tulip poplar.  One of the more interesting things about any art involving nature, is that it forces you to look at things closer.  Each leaf, even from the same branch of a tree can vary quite a bit.  Often the leaf, if held up to the light, will reveal the same branch pattern as the tree, a small fractal version of the tree encoded in each leaf.   This is the railing on the private deck for the Hummingbird room.  It leads to a small rose garden with view over Three Ridges Mountain and the George Washington National Forest.

 The cantilevered balcony on the Poplar Room overlooking Main Street.  The poplar leaf is in the center, the top row is sassafras and a row of white oak leaves below.

 Below is a Italian inspired railing on the deck behind the Bakery.  It is a perfect place to greet the morning with a cup of coffee and listen to the birds sing. Above in the distance is Wintergreen.  The ski slopes are on the other side of this ridge.

 Below is the railing from the front porch.  It is in a more classical French medieval style with fur-d-leis and diamonds. 

 Finally, a Dutch inspired fields of tulips railing.

Town Clock

Well it is about time, we finally installed the clock in the tower.  After looking at hundreds of clock designs, we went with the German theme of the Zodiac symbols and a metallic sky blue finish that changes from light blue to dark blue depending on the light.  If you note the Roman numerals on the clock faces in Europe usually have an error, at least according to the Roman numbering rules.

If you look closely you can find the number four is done as IIII and not the standard IV.  There are a dozen or so reported reasons for this, but the one I go with has to do with casting the numbers.  If you count out the number of X and V and I, there are even numbers this way, 4 X and 4 V and then 10 of the I.  It could be a casting of half this used, where as the other way would create odd numbers of V and I and require a single larger casting.  Another theory is of various kings preferring this way,  though it could be simply to make the numbers more readable as they flip upside down.  While we take time for granted now, the idea of everyone in a town being more or less on the same schedule was rather a big deal in Medieval times.  Still each town figured its own time for noon, making the town clock the important place for town unity.  It was not until the rail roads made time from one town to the next important for train schedules, that the idea of a national time with time zones was developed.

 

At night the clock is back lit from the town room through the clock face and the Zodiac symbols.  The clock reflects in these two windows if you stand in just the right spot. 

 From inside the tower room, the clock is actually a window.  The clock faces West and in the Winter time the setting sun will cast the clock image on to the opposite wall.  The setting sun will cast unusual shadows down the entire Main Street.  At night, the lights on the street create a number of funny shadows and reflections.

The Dragon's den at Fenton Inn.

A bay window looking out on the peaceful Main Street. But who knows what might be around the corner on the other side of the moat.

  Here is another example of copper work on the bakery window, through which you can barely see the leg of a handmade table. Below we see a pair of grey squirrels snacking on an acorn.

On the side portion of the Inn we find a dragon attempting to escape from it's underground lair.
 

There are several arched doorways in the building, including the dragons den. Beside it, there is an archway with a drawbridge gate held up by chains. It's images like this that blend the local trees and wildlife with the mythology and style of old world Europe.

Maybe there are crocodiles hiding in that moat?

We are finishing up the massage room this week. Here is a sneak peak at the floor mural.