A year or so back I was contacted by an individual that lived on Long Island, NY. He was in the process of moving from NY to NC, and had some slabs with a very special provenance that he was interested in having kiln dried. I have a farm based sawmill and kiln drying business in NC outside of Raleigh, hence his interest.
He explained that his great uncle was Charles Wang, the founder of Computer Associates and a big fan of President Teddy Roosevelt. Charles Wang immigrated to the US when he was 8 years old, and like a lot of immigrants really believed in the fundamental premise of individual freedom and rights that the US was created from. Mr. Wang embodied the American Dream; working hard and ultimately become a billionaire.
Wang built an estate on Long Island that bordered President Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill home. Teddy Roosevelt built Sagamore Hill and moved in with his family in 1887. It served as the "Summer White House" during his presidency, and was where he lived afterward until he passed away in 1919. Charles Wang was well known to the site manager and crew and was a frequent donor and supporter of the museum.
Around 2015 Wang approached the site manager and enquired about what they were planning to do about the large copper beech tree that was dying on the estate. To which the site manager replied "what dying copper beech?" Turns out that they were unaware that one of the majestic 40" DBH trees that Roosevelt had planted was dying about 400' from the main house. The tree had lost a large upper limb in past wind storms, and had started dying and decaying from the mid point down.
TR was a well known fan of copper beech trees, and it is well recorded that he planted many on the estate, including immediately adjacent to his home. Wang felt strongly that the logs from the dying tree should be preserved, and struck a deal to be able to retain the logs if he funded the removal of the dying tree and all of it's debris.
The salvaged logs were transported next door to Wang's estate and stored in his landscaping service area. Unfortunately, not long thereafter he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died. Before he died, he asked his great nephew to become responsible for the logs, and to ensure that they were used in a manner that was appropriate for their provenance; to which the nephew agreed.
The nephew arranged for an urban treecycling company to come to the estate and slab the logs, and then had them stacked and stickered under some canopy type shelters for air drying. The treecyling company ended up with some of the boule's, but the nephew kept two of them. A 36", 13' long section from where the broken limb was, and an 8' long, 40" diameter crescent shaped log from the bottom of the tree. After some discussions with us, he sent a truck down from NY with the boules, and we took charge of them, kiln drying the larger one and stickering the smaller one for continued air drying.
We've sold a few slabs, and worked with the nephew to create a table from a bookmatched pair. We did the planing, glue up and sanding in-house, and the nephew arranged for a cabinet maker to build the legs and finish the slab.
Here are some progress photo's of the project.
Here is the dying tree at the start of the removal process:
Attachment 466527
Same tree after limbing. TR's home is visible in the background.
Attachment 466528
The log that the slabs were milled from:
Attachment 466530
The bookmatched slabs that we selected for the table top, after using the Peterson swingblade sawmill for flattening the kiln dried slabs:
Attachment 466531
Attachment 466532
The finished glue up:
Attachment 466533
The completed table. We did not do the finish work, but supplied the glued up, void epoxy filled and sanded slab that was ready for finishing. The finish is Osmo Poly-X oil and the base is steel.
Attachment 466535
It is really fulfilling to be able to participate in projects that are unusual, especially one with a legacy as tremendous as Teddy Roosevelts'.
