Hancock Shaker Village

A couple of weeks ago the family and I headed up to the Berkshires in Western Mass. We had ambitious plans to bring the kids to the Berkshire Museum, Mass MoCA and the Hancock Shaker Village, but it just so happened that it turned out to be the coldest week they have had in the last 5 winters. One day the high was 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say we had to rethink our itinerary rather than drag the kiddos around in the freezing cold weather.

I did manage to get out by myself for a frigid tour of the Hancock Shaker Village. I was the only person on the tour and got a good look at the Round Barn and the Dormitory. The round barn is an amazing stone and timber framed structure.

The Dormitory has some beautiful trim work and built in cabinetry. I also learned that originally the shakers painted their trim and cabinets bright primary colors. I had always associated shaker cabinetry and furniture with natural wood finishes. Apparently they used to paint it and sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds they started stripping the paint and finishing the wood natural. The Hancock Shaker Village has done chemical analysis on some of the pieces and restored them to their original colors.

The tour guide and I bumped into another group with the curator who were there researching tapered drawer sides. They were there trying to trace origin of the tapered drawer side in order to shed some light on the reason that someone would build a drawer in that manner. Making a Drawer side with a taper increases the complexity and difficulty of laying out and cutting the dovetail joint. I offered my theory that they may have done it to use material more efficiently. It almost looks as if you could rip a 5/4" plank on a bevel and use the two pieces as the two sides of the drawer. This would keep the drawer small and light at the top and beefier at the bottom in order to give it strength where the bottom is dado'd into it. Unfortunately I was not the first person to propose this theory. Another theory is that the builders were using offcuts of clapboard siding for the sides.

Despite having my hands feet and nose go numb in the round barn it was a good tour and I left there inspired to get back to work on the Ann St. House and on setting up my wood shop. I also got some pictures of the farm animals for my Daughter.