SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) – There’s much to do at Shelburne Farms, in addition to taking in the scenery. Stop by the welcome center, and you’ll be met with goods for sale, made right on the farm.
There’s a lot of work that goes on at Shelburne Farms, and Joe Carney is one of many grinding for a good cause. Carney runs Welcome Center Wood, the program that supplies the farm’s welcome center with live edge wood slabs and furniture made from trees sustainably harvested on the property. Carney, a volunteer, has been at it for two years or so.
“I had come to look for a piece of wood to make a table and in the process of looking for that piece of wood to [make] a table, I stumbled on a guy named Marshall Webb,” Carney recounted.
Marshall Webb co-founded Shelburne Farms as an educational organization in the 1970s. More recently, he had taken a role in forging a path toward sustainability. That mission was seen in his woodworking, as he focused on turning wood that would otherwise rot into usable goods.
“Marshall was one of a kind and probably the most unique man I have ever met,” Carney said. “He was insightful, he was kind, he was looking out for the world, the planet.”
Webb helped Carney find the perfect piece of wood for his project, and the two became fast friends.
“The next morning after I met Marshall, literally the next morning at 7:30, we were on top of the hill milling wood,” Carney said.
Webb passed away in the summer of 2022. With big shoes to fill and a mission to uphold, Carney took the reins and pressed on, expanding the welcome center’s offerings from live edge slabs and into handcrafted furniture.
“We started to take some of these unusual pieces that probably would have been burned for a wood stove, instead of that we started turning them into tables and people seemed to love it,” Carney said.
All of the slabs are air-dried on the property for years before use. Some of the wood Carney likes to work with was recovered from the farm’s dairy barn fire in 2016.
“Somewhat almost the uglier the better,” he laughed.
Char, tap holes, knots and cracks; no matter, Carney loves them all.
“There’s a saw mark on here,” said Carney, while showing off a slab of wood. “Saw marks are cool. So I’ll fill that saw mark with epoxy and leave it as is for people to talk about while they’re sitting around looking at their table.”
“People who are having a piece of wood in their home want to see imperfection. They want to see a hole or a crack or my favorite pieces hands down are the ones with tap holes in them,” he said.
With a little TLC and a lot of tung oil, wood that would otherwise go in the burn pile takes the shape of beautiful furniture, thanks to Welcome Center Wood.
“I could recognize every table that I’ve ever made just because each one is a little bit different and I spend quite a bit of time on them,” he said.
The best way to snag a table, slab or to talk with Carney about a custom piece is to stop by the welcome center.