Tanglewood Conservatories in the News once again, Tanglewood has made it into several great magazine articles.

Washington Spaces magazine, in a piece titled “Spectacular Outdoor Rooms” has included two of Tanglewood’s recent projects, the great glass greenhouse – which is the #3 project in the Botanical and Palm Houses section of our website and the beautiful brick and stone conservatory retreat that is #11 in the Conservatory Gallery section.

The article describes the process well “… these extraordinary conservatories are built in their entirety at the Denton, MD, workshop, then disassembled with each part carefully numbered, and reassembled on site by the same crew who built it”.

Home & Design magazine, the magazine of luxury homes and fine interiors, features an article called “Glass Houses—Conservatories enable homeowners to enjoy the great outdoors without the hassles”.

The writer takes an interesting position: “The hottest trend in outdoor living is extending the indoors outside, but some homeowners believe it’s a better idea to bring the outdoors in”.

The writer goes on to say: “Glass houses let you enjoy the garden when there’s a cold, early spring rain; in high summer when it’s too hot and humid to venture outside; on a blustery fall day when the leaves are brilliant oranges and reds; and during winter snowfalls that turn the landscape into a silvery wonderland.”

I couldn’t have said it any better!

Alan

Someone recently asked me to describe how Tanglewood Conservatories was started. I related the following story about our first conservatory project.

I was in the Washington DC area in the business of supplying local home builders with prefabricated sunrooms and skylights. We worked at this with some degree of success until the real estate market imploded in 1990. After that happened, we targeted our work to home improvement contractors at which time the size and complexity of the projects began to increase dramatically.

That was when one of our clients showed us a picture of a conservatory and asked if we could build one. This led us into the world of conservatories. We searched for a supplier but were unable to find someone who offered a product that was of the quality we wanted. So, we decided to build it ourselves.

The first conservatory, the one with the green interior on our website, went surprisingly well. When a second customer asked for one, we started to think we could make a business out of this specialized niche.

We had some very skilled carpenters and much of the work on the first one was done on site since we only had a very small wood shop at the time. One of the challenges was how to use the standard sized windows that we bought from a local distributor to produce the very custom looking conservatory that we had designed. This required quite a bit of creatively. For example, we had to come up with a method of adding spacer blocks in certain places so that things would line up just right—something that has always been very important to us.

And of course the trim details were difficult to get right because we didn’t have the flexibility to make all the modifications to the woodwork as we do now.

The frustrations of having to work within the bounds of someone else’s standardized product, is what has led us in to all the custom manufacturing that we do today. From making our own specialty windows and doors, to the highly custom copper work that we do, to the special techniques we use for making our insulated glass, all of these items were originally outsourced, but were eventually taken in house because we found that it was the only way we could have complete control over the design, the scheduling and the quality of the product.

That original job turned out to be spectacular, the customer was VERY happy and Tanglewood Conservatories was begun.

Alan

“In my years working with Tanglewood Conservatories, I have come to use the relationship that Alan and I have built together as a model for I want a professional collaborative relationship to be.” – James Davis AIA

These inspiring words were written by Jim Davis, an architect in NY who we’ve worked with on a number of projects over the last several years. The latest project, a beautiful little greenhouse can be seen in our Botanical & Palm Houses section, page 2.

Some of Tanglewood’s best designs have come not from the particular genius of any one person, but from the creative process that sometimes can occur when a group of talented people, all committed to a very high level of artistic expression, come together to solve a problem.

I am definitely NOT talking about “design by Committee”, which is the death of the creative process, but of a creative spark which can spontaneously ignite the imagination of the group and raise them to a level beyond which their personal ingrained tendencies would otherwise lead them.

I think the requirement for this is a willingness to give way on certain personal “convictions” which can seem so “right” at the moment, but are really only the products of our personal limitations—for no matter how talented we are—there is a limit to our ability to conceive really new ideas.

I was recently giving a presentation of a conservatory concept design to a group that included a prominent and very talented architect, a builder, a landscape architect, an interior designer and a client. The project was a significant conservatory to be attached to a new home and I had labored to produce several schemes that I thought reflected the unique architecture of the home as well as Tanglewood’s unique capabilities.

The architect had a different idea however and an animated discussion ensued. Scissors were brought to the table, and the drawings were cut up and pasted back together again and again until all of us sitting there sat back and said: That’s it!

The result of this truly remarkable collaboration is a conservatory design that was better than any of us could have produced by ourselves—and we all knew it!

I came across this interesting flashing detail on an old farm house in New England. The lead flashing was formed right over the rock ledge, no reglet used. I wasn’t surprised. The house had been built some time ago. It was probably too much trouble to move the rock.

I wonder if the building inspector passed it!

We promise not to use details such as this on your conservatory project!

Alan

I wanted to show off this beautiful copper clad, mahogany conservatory that we are getting ready to ship. It’s the first in a series of completely clad, completely maintenance free conservatories and pool enclosures that Tanglewood has recently been commissioned to design and build.

Tanglewood’s ability to produce copper clad windows, roof systems as well as many of the decorative parts that give its conservatories a recognizable allure, has been under development for several years. This is as much about art and craftsmanship as it is technology – and that takes a long time to develop.

The ornate copper conservatory shown here is for a client in Montana. The owner was concerned about the harsh Montana winter and given the remote location as well as his travel schedule, he didn’t want to worry about the need to maintain a typical wood conservatory.

Not wanting to settle for an ordinary PVC or aluminum clad conservatory, he searched for a company that could produce something extraordinary made from copper or bronze.

The interior of the room is finished in our trademark richly stained mahogany.

Alan