- Pristine lumber from Western Massachusetts outfits a landmark restoration across the pond.
The tranquil woods of western Massachusetts would seem to have little connection with the urbane world of London’s cosmopolitan financial district. But John Atwater ’59, ’64G found a most unusual way to link the two places he calls home.
The sawmill at John’s Atwater Farm in East Charlemont supplied nearly all the sawn boards used to restore the 17th-century Christ Church Tower, a historic gem in the heart of London’s financial district. Designed by the Baroque architect Sir Christopher Wren—responsible for 53 London churches, including the majestic St. Paul’s—the tower is the surviving architectural element of a church erected c.1704 and nearly leveled during World War II bombing.
The tower has been recently restored as an 11-story private residence by London architects Boyarsky Murphy. The three-year project has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles in Britain and abroad. When Kate Renwick moved in with her two grown sons last summer, Christ Church Tower had become—to quote Britain’s Building Design Magazine—“an utterly fantastical yet completely functional home.”
The link between a rural New England farm and this high-profile London restoration began when Renwick visited Atwater Farm.
“I am a London client of John Atwater’s and visited him a few years ago in western Massachusetts when I was thinking a lot about the tower project. John’s sawyer impressed me, as did the quality of the planed boards.” Renwick says she could tell there was an obvious absence of pollution in the growing process of John’s trees. “I had never, anywhere, seen oak and cherry wood that extraordinary.”
Sawyer Ken Griswold—who built and operates the Atwater Farm mill— planed approximately 18,000 board feet of oak and cherry from 50 carefully selected trees growing on the 400-acre farm. The finished boards were then shipped across the pond. Atwater and Griswold oversaw every step of the process, guiding the lumber through its evolution from living tree to new architectural element in a historic home.
“Over a three-week period, Ken sawed and planed each board as specified by the architects, then they were sent to a kiln in Brattleboro, Vermont,” explains Atwater. “Once the boards were cured, Ken loaded them into a shipping container using a truck-mounted telescopic handler attached to our Manitou tractor.” The boards were shipped from Port Elizabeth in New Jersey to the Port of Felixstowe in England. From there, they were taken to an architectural millwork in London “to become the new wood used in Kate Renwick’s old tower house.” The mature oak and cherry wood was used for paneling, stairs, shelving, interior and exterior doors, and bookcases—with stunning results.
“That’s because tightness of grain is enhanced each year that a tree continues to grow,” says Mary Wigmore ’80, who manages the Atwater Farm forest. Under John’s watchful, patient eye, trees are selected to be felled when they are 80 to 125 years old. “The forest is home to some of the most commercially valuable pine, oak, cherry, and hemlock in New England. It is the sort of wood preferred by upper-end craftspeople in the lumber and fine-furniture business.”
“Americans are far more conscious of using traditional methods than are we British,” says Kate Renwick, adding that there “was never a question that using American wood to restore a London landmark would enhance the project.”
John Atwater’s exportation of American wood to England has a well-known historical precedent. By the late 17th century, Great Britain had nearly depleted its forests for building materials and heating. When British explorers arrived in the New World, they set about immediately cutting down the dense, virgin forests along the Atlantic coast and shipping the wood back to England.
Atwater family history is equally as long. The great-great-great-grandson of one of the earliest settlers of Charlemont, Massachusetts, Atwater (father of UMass Amherst grads Robert ’86 and Timothy ’90) spent his boyhood summers on the family’s farm there. “Summers were very special and important to me. Growing up, I wanted to be a farmer . . . now, at age 72, my ‘day job’ as an investment manager makes that possible. Western Massachusetts is always on my mind,” says John, who communicates nearly daily with those who manage his property when he is abroad.
John describes Atwater Farm as “not a big operation. We are restoring and repairing buildings, we’ve got a small herd of cows, a little orchard, hay is cut in summer . . . and we have the sawmill.”
Boards have been sawn at Atwater Farm for restoration projects in Italy, as well as in Virginia, New York, and California. But John says his is not a commercial venture.
“I think supplying our boards for select projects is fine, but I’m not in the sawn-board business. It is enough to know that friends and family appreciate the quality of what grows here in western Massachusetts.” For John, this connection to the landscape helps define him and is “part of the reason that coming to East Charlemont gives me such pleasure. That some of our wood is used abroad . . . well,” he admits, “it does make a good story.”
