| from D1
There were sketches - many, as it turned out, because
Trish is both a graphic and fine artist. Trish apparently translated
her dream space clearly; after an initial consult with Don Barber, the
owner of Stonington Post and Beam, the vision quickly materialized.
"We showed him the existing garage
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|
and what we wanted and what feeling
we wanted inside, and two days later he came back with blueprints of exactly
what we wanted,' recalls Joel.
The front of the studio, which faces south, glimmers
with an expanse of glass. The windows capture the light needed for
Trish to pursue her fine arts - which is what the studio is designed for.
"No phones, no TV or computers," asserts the artist. "Just music."
With her surrounding gardens and view of a brook
frolicking its way through the town, Trish is embedded in inspiration for
the botanical renderings she is working with in differing media.
If natural light is not enough, track lighting can be controlled to suit
her needs.
It's difficult to conjure up the former garage
when gazing up at the beautiful cedar structure. Yet underneath,
the base of the old building remains.
Barber, who learned the post and beam technique
while in the Army and went into business in 1979, chose to keep the four
7-foot-high walls as his foundation a decision made to keep down the
project's cost. |
The technique of lowering
a timber frame into an existing stick-built construction isn't new to the
business. Barber, while usually called on to build houses, has done
these additions on several occasions - including the transformation of
a shack into a salt-box-style house.
Such dramatic changes are possible because timber
frames possess the ability to open up a facade.
More glass possible
"Because the timber frame supports its own weight
right down to the foundation, it has the ability to have a lot more wide
open space and glass," explains Barber.
Oddly enough, post and beam construction, responsible
for the humble, dark dwellings which still stand from the 1700s, can be
a viable and flexible way for homeowners to achieve the modern design of
cathedral ceilings and expanse of glass. Barber, who can convert
stick-built blueprints into timber-frame constructions, explains that the
technique gives him a lot of freedom according to the homeowners' wishes. |
"We can build it and set it up with no walls if
people don't want walls. Or we can put walls anywhere," he says.
While the traditional way of doing post and beam
construction was to use pegs, nowadays spikes are used for additional support.
Barber preserves the historic look by using spikes when they will not be
visible.
Much of the building of Trish LaPointe's studio
happened off-site. It arrived in bits and pieces, lowered onto the
former garage. The project, from start to finish, took Barber and
a few men including 18-year-old Scott Wilson, an intern from the Ella
T. Grasso Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical School in Groton -
three months.
The men signed the inside front wall with their
names before putting up the siding - a post and beam tradition. Inside
the space, a studio lit by an expanse of glass with the support of a century-old
tradition silently awaits the strains of jazz music and an artist bending
over an easel. |
T
IS A PICTURE-PERFECT scene: an artist sipping a cup of coffee on a crisp
spring morning, gazing up at the expanse of sky, the rays of light spilling
through her studio which as yet has no roof.
