North Bennet St. School to hold timber frame workshop Aug. 3 - 13

The North Bennet St. School is partnering with the Shaker Museum and Library to offer a two-week, hands-on workshop in timber frame construction and restoration. The course will be held August 3 to 13, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, at the Mount Lebanon Shaker village. The course fee is $1,100. The workshop is designed for anyone interested in timber frame construction, young people considering a career in historic preservation, those pursuing a second career, or even owners of historic homes. "Timber framing is the structural system of most historic 18th century homes. So an owner of such a home may want to learn about timber framing to know how his home is built," said Miguel Gomez-Ibanez, executive director of North Bennet St. School. The first week of the course will be spent learning how to construct a small timber frame that will be erected at the site. In the second week, participants will work on restoration of an actual historic structure, the Shaker Brethren's Workshop. North Bennet St. School is one of the few institutions in the country offering a two-year training program in preservation carpentry. Finding historic structures to work on can be difficult, said Gomez-Ibanez, so the school welcomed the opportunity to run the workshop at the museum's facility. The museum welcomed the opportunity as well: it recently announced the closing of its Old Chatham site, and its plans to relocate an extensive collection of Shaker artifacts to New Lebanon in the next few years. All of the site's eleven structures and various landscape features need repair, and the work must be done in a manner that preserves their historic nature. "Our goal is to improve the level of historic preservation trades training in the area, and to help the local community connect to our new site," said David Stocks, president of Shaker Museum and Library. For more information about the workshop, contact Geoff Miller at the Shaker Museum and Library, 518-794-9100, x 220, [email protected] or visit www.shakermuseumandlibrary.org.