The basement of a home is an often-neglected space, relegated to the role of storage. For Phoebe Berks resident Thomas Hartz, however, the basement of his cottage represents a place of organic creativity.
Woodworking since he was a teenager, Hartz’s first job in his hometown of Shillington, Pennsylvania, was with his family’s lumber mill. At first, he was tasked with basic jobs such as sanding, but Hartz still fell in love with the craft.
“You learn by just looking over and observing these master craftsmen,” he says. Hartz’s father was the superintendent for a custom woodworking facility, and his dedication to the job quickly rubbed off on his son.
Hartz learned most of what he knows about woodworking from his family and talking with local woodworkers. He would also visit woodworking shows to connect with like-minded people and learn about new equipment.
The Phoebe Berks cottage Hartz lives in with his wife Donna features several furniture pieces of his own creation scattered throughout their home. These include the TV stand, an end table near the front door, various storage chests, and the kitchen napkin holder.
Hartz’s cabinets are filled with some of his smaller creations. One particularly handy piece of his is a soup stirring spoon with a channel in the middle that allows the stirrer to taste the broth without sticking the same end back into the pot.
Hartz’s most recent project is a storage chest featuring carvings of various carpentry tools all along the outside. The craftsmanship of the box is undeniably impressive, looking like something out of an antique shop. He says it is one of his proudest creations.
And if all that wasn’t impressive enough, you haven’t seen the shop where Hartz creates said pieces. If you took a short trip down the steps of his cottage and hung a left, you’d bear witness to a fully functional, professional woodshop.
No detail was spared in the creation of this basement shop. The room has enough equipment to make your head spin, including parts of different machinery combined to boost efficiency. There are filing cabinets filled with instruction manuals, desks to sketch and map out projects, a makeshift painting station, a wood storage area, and a robust ventilation system with pipes running through the ceiling.
Despite the sheer volume of equipment, every tool and workstation is thoughtfully placed according to Hartz’s workflow. He says that learning how to construct a proper woodshop has been a learning experience for him throughout his life. Hartz likes to emphasize the order in which he will be using each piece of equipment so that he can simply go down the machinery line as he creates.
There is ample space to move around the shop, and the smell of fresh wood invites guests to its industrial yet cozy atmosphere.
The ventilation system was designed in part by Hartz to ensure the long-term safety of working in the shop. The air particles get sucked up through large metal tubes and dispersed between a large bin that collects bigger pieces of wood and an air filter that catches the smaller particles.
Of all the shops Hartz has assembled throughout his life, this is his most complete and accomplished. He tries to spend time in it every day.
Even with the machinery Hartz has at his disposal, he says that half of the work when creating a piece comes from preplanning and sketching. One must be as much of an architect as a woodworker when making such pieces.
Hartz has had to learn a lot about wood, including its different types.
“You don’t love the craft unless you love the wood. Without wood, it’s just work,” says Hartz. Different types of wood can have vastly different properties from one another. These include everything from texture to grain to smell.
Hartz’s favorite type of wood is cherry due to its beautiful appearance, durability, ease of use, and its ability to darken over time. He explains that it is essential not to leave objects resting on a freshly cut piece of cherry wood, as this may leave an imprint of said object on the wood when you pick it up the next morning.
Despite his passion for woodworking, Hartz never wanted it to be his career.
“It’s too frustrating to try to sell. You put in 50 hours for a $50 product,” he says. Hartz graduated from Albright College in 1961 with a degree in Economics and has maintained woodworking purely as a hobby. He didn’t want the hustle of a job muddying his love of the craft.
Instead, Hartz gifts his creations, making holidays and birthdays a no-brainer. He has started a Christmas tradition of making batches of the same piece for his family. The yearly process has taught him how to make large quantities with ease.
Today, woodworking helps keep Hartz’s mind and body active while he lives at Phoebe Berks. He never tires of seeing the grain of a finished piece of wood shine, and the feeling of making something from scratch is a cathartic experience for him.
The decision to move to Phoebe came when the couple felt it was time to sell their existing properties and downsize. What followed was a road trip along the East Coast in which Hartz and his wife visited various retirement communities. Phoebe Berks happened to be the last stop on their journey back North.
When they arrived, the couple ran into the campus’s Executive Director, who gave them a personal tour. They spent several hours on campus. Impressed by the hospitality and graciousness, they decided to move ahead with a Phoebe Berks cottage.
By sheer chance, Hartz’s neighbor, who moved in shortly after Hartz, is also a woodworker named Tom. The two of them have bonded over their shared interest in woodworking.
Despite his initial hesitance toward living in a retirement community, Hartz says that his family’s time at Phoebe Berks “has been excellent.”
We certainly cannot wait to see what new creations Hartz comes up with in the future.
To learn more about Phoebe Berks, please visit 5d5b62807b.nxcli.io/berks.
Written by Dominic Trabosci