He started by carving frames for his paintings, then built a studio for 40 years

A painter picked up carving tools and ended up building a landmark studio by hand.

By Made Over Weekend · 5 min read

Wharton Esherick was born in Philadelphia in 1887. He studied drawing and printmaking at the city's School of Industrial Art and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Nothing about that start points to wood. He wanted to be a painter.

In 1913 he and his wife Letty bought an old farmhouse on five acres near Paoli, Pennsylvania. They picked a place with enough flat ground to grow their own food, in case the paintings did not sell. Around 1920 he began carving simple designs into the frames of his paintings. That small habit grew. He cut some 350 woodcut blocks, illustrated nine books, then started carving furniture and sculpture. In 1926 his wood sculpture was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

How it was built

The same year, 1926, he began building a studio up the hillside from the farmhouse. The first part rose from local sandstone and reclaimed hand-hewn beams, worked out on site without drawn plans, with a carpenter, a mason and a few helpers. He added a garage in 1928, a wood frame wing with a dining room, kitchen and bedroom in 1940, a workshop in 1956 designed with the architect Louis Kahn, and a curving silo tower in 1966. Close to 40 years of building, one piece at a time.

The best known piece inside is the spiral staircase he made in 1930 from red oak. It climbs from the workshop to the bedroom loft, and the column twists as it rises. Each tread is held by a tenon set into a mortise in the central post. The stairs were taken out of the house twice for shows, first for his room at the 1939 to 1940 New York World's Fair.

Esherick died in 1970. His family opened the studio as a museum in 1972, and in 1993 it was named a National Historic Landmark.

What it teaches a weekend woodworker

The mortise and tenon is the joint behind those stairs, and it is one of the oldest and strongest ways to join two pieces of wood. A tenon is a tongue cut on the end of one piece. A mortise is the hole in the other piece that it fits into. To try it small, make a simple stool: drill or chop a mortise in a thick seat board, saw the end of a leg down to a snug tenon, and glue it in. A hand saw, a chisel, a drill and a pencil line are enough. Take your time on the fit; it should go in with hand pressure, not a hammer.

Esherick did not start as a woodworker. He started with one carved frame and kept going for 50 years. Your first piece can be just as small. Pick one plan this weekend, cut one joint, and see where it takes you.