Montana Historian, Big Timberworks

Big Timberworks
The Creative Harmony of Design and Building
Big Timberworks in Gallatin Gateway sits below a distant view of the Bridgers
surrounded by artistic ironwork and a 56-foot-tall clock tower. The timber-frame
buildings encompass a reclaimed timber yard full of exotic materials with equally
exotic histories: redwood from Vlassic pickle tanks, fir timbers from grain
elevators and bomb factories, siding from an Arm & Hammer water tank. The
buildings are harmonious with the surroundings, and when walking the length
of them—showroom, office, wood shop, foundry, materials yard—it feels a bit
like a modern version of an old rambling Montana town.
BT is a thrilling place full of creative people investigating and refining ideas and
materials. The shop is an other-worldly place with an open bay filled with tools
and projects and the piney fragrance of wood shavings and sounds of craftsmen
making things—the unfurling of wood beneath a chisel, the tap of a mallet, groan
of an old nail being pulled. It’s a refuge for the spirit of tinkerers and creative
souls—a sacred place for artistic-minded people who understand the deep
silence at the core of creation.
Known for its rustic industrial style, BT builds products from materials that
have character and stories—history stored in wood grains, in old bolt and nail
holes. Working with reclaimed wood, steel, and other products such as recycled
plow discs and lift ropes, BT craftsmen listen to the materials and intuitively respond with their hands, creating new possibilities while honoring the heritage of
materials and craftsmanship. BT builds homes, architectural details in furniture,
doors, cabinetry, roofs, siding, and metalwork. “Our work is a history of people
and material,” says founder and cooperative co-owner Merle Adams, noting that
BT clients love where things came from. “While clients may not know exactly
what they’re going to get, they trust us and let us improve the design, form, and
function of what we are trying to build for them.”
Adams loves his job: making a living by honoring wood. He is creative and
self-possessed, exuding a kind of equanimity that stems from the harmonious
relationship between creativity and career, context and meaning. The greatest
harmony, he says, is found in “working with clients and building homes that have
elements that are almost sacred.” As an example, he describes a current home
BT is building in Jackson Creek for Margaret Davis. Big Timberworks was a
subcontractor when the original home was built in 1994 for Margaret and her
husband Jerry, a retired pilot. Both were Montana natives, but Jerry’s career took
them to New Jersey where they raised their family. In 2011, tragically, the Davis’
Jackson Creek home burned down, taking Jerry’s life. “Because they loved the
home and Montana, Margaret decided that Jerry would be unhappy if she didn’t
replace the home for their four children,” Adams says, and Margaret hired BT to
design and rebuild it.
In rebuilding, Adams has carefully chosen the materials. Fittingly, the fir
timbers came from a warehouse in New Jersey. The flooring was once a roof in
a 300,000-square-foot Boeing factory that built cargo planes and 747s which
Jerry undoubtedly flew. Adams found an original window from Bozeman Hot
Springs—not far from Margaret’s ancestral home—that will be used in the
interior. As a memorial to Jerry, he retrieved a piece of burnt timber from the old
house that will be incorporated in the entryway. BT had originally carved the
truss piece, but the fire destroyed most of the scrolled edge. “It fits in beautifully
and allows Margaret to tell the story,” Adams says softly, recalling how much
Jerry loved the building process, old wood, and their stories. “I feel privileged that
Margaret asked BT to rebuild the home,” Adams says, “and really, I’m unofficially
working for someone not even on this earth.” As I listen to the story, I am struck
by how many conversations are going on in the creative process—conversations
between the craftsmen and walls, entryways and windows, tools and materials and history, and a deep conversation with the client. It’s clear from the way
Adams speaks about this project that it holds special meaning, a context and
history that honors not only wood, materials, and craftsmanship, but also life.
It’s a big gesture to craft beautiful homes and furnishings, and at the core of BT’s
philosophy is building with meaning and heart, and that gesture alone is what
leads design to places not yet imagined.
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Montana Historian