A client who purchased a Tanglewood Conservatory about 10 years ago, needed a new part for his operable skylight vent. We quickly figured out what part was needed and sent it to him right away, even though we had to cannibalize our inventory. He wanted to put the part in himself so we walked him through the process.

Here’s what he had to say afterwards:

Tim, I received the chain yesterday (Friday) and your technician— ME, installed it today.
Also I found that lubrication and applied it. It works lake a champ!

While I was up there 19’ I lubed the other chain too in the other motor. My recommendation is to lubed them every 5 years or 50,000 open/closing’s which ever occurs first!

Thanks for all your help and Tom too. As far as Alan goes, well he’s the boss so he doesn’t need any recognition!

Thanks Alan for all you do! I LOVE my conservatory!!!!!
John

In response to my last blog post about the car pool and gas reimbursement program we recently introduced at Tanglewood Conservatories, I received the following note:

“Really great to hear your car sharing idea. Don’t see the logic in you not purchasing a hybrid car though?”

Please know that the car pool program was not meant to replace the hybrid car purchase, which I’m glad to report is underway. I was just commenting on the relative benefits derived from each of the two.

I was quite surprised to see the phenomenal overall impact car pooling can have (as opposed to just purchasing a higher efficiency vehicle)when I sat down and worked up the numbers. Both together is definitely the best solution.

Alan

I was all set to purchase a new Hybrid car in an effort to do our part to reduce world wide energy consumption and help with the fight against Global Warming, when Nancy came up with what I thought was an even better idea.

Since our conservatory workshop is located in a very rural area in Maryland, east of the Chesapeake Bay, most of the people who work at Tanglewood Conservatories have to drive from some distance to get here. Nancy posed the question: “why couldn’t people car pool?”

Lot’s of our people live in places close to each other yet for years have been driving their separate vehicles back and forth to work each day. Imagine the good that would be accomplished if instead of just replacing our own car with one that is more efficient, we could completely eliminate five or ten separate trips of as much as 60 miles each day!

We would also be helping everyone save considerable sums of money at the pump—a very real and valuable side benefit.

It seemed to be a win-win idea all around. To encourage everyone to participate to the fullest, Tanglewood agreed to contribute to the cost of the gas for those carpooling in this way. This would constitute an even greater savings for everyone.

The idea received a warm reception and was quickly put to the test. We did some legwork to identify potential riding companions and meeting places and came up with a plan.

I’m happy to report that a few weeks after it’s inception, the program is working.

We have taken approximately 350 passenger miles off the roadways each day and are saving people at our custom conservatory plant approximately $100 per day total! Some people saw their weekly gas bill drop by as much as 75%!

That beats by a long way the benefits that would have come from Nancy and I purchasing a more efficient car for our own use.

Maybe the idea will spread…

Alan

I forgot to mention another article spotlighting sunrooms and conservatories (conservatories as a subset of sunrooms).

In the July issue of Chesapeake Home, an article titled “Sunrooms: Bring the outdoors in” by Rebecca E. Jones-Paulsen, discusses the growing popularity of sunrooms and conservatories and talks about new developments in energy efficiency. It also helps consumers learn about design options and features while discussing how consumers can go about identifying their own needs and budgets.

In making the distinction between a sunroom and a conservatory, Jones-Paulsen says “…they (conservatories) are still the most expensive style of sunroom to build. Consider conservatories the Ferrari of sunrooms.”

She goes on to say that “…and like exotic automobiles, custom conservatories are the products of elegant design and top-quality manufacturing.”

“Tanglewood Conservatories, a Denton, Maryland based company for example, offers exquisite, custom design and craftsmanship by a staff that focuses 100 percent of their attention on one thing – the conservatory.”

I would correct that by saying that we actually focus 100 percent of our attention on something other than the conservatory – our customers!

Alan

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 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

A number of publications that have featured stories about Tanglewood projects recently.

One interesting article showcasing our conservatories can be seen in American Dream Homes, a special interest magazine catering to affluent consumers as well as professional custom home builders, remodelers, and contractors.

According to the website of American Dream Homes, “each issue of American Dream Homes presents readers with high-quality editorial, graphic design, information, and advertising—all designed to assist consumers and professionals with the creation of their dream residences. American Dream Homes is distributed nationally on newsstands and into a variety of high-end bookstores and home stores, such as Barnes & Noble, Borders, Lowes, and Home Depot.”

We’ll be placing an online copy of the article in the “Published Articles” section of our website shortly. If you haven’t already explored these Published Articles (located in the “Our Firm” section), please take a look at some very interesting issues of major publications. The articles are not only about Tanglewood and our conservatory projects, but about general issues and topics of interest relating to all conservatory projects.

Alan

I hope everyone has noticed the new look of some of the sections of our website. We’ve tried to make the navigation scheme easier to follow and we’ve added more images on many of the pages in the Our Portfolio section.

We’ve also expanded the Our Portfolio section to show some of the really great Botanical and Palm Houses that we have been building recently in addition to our custom conservatories and we’ve added a section highlighting our crafting of custom Domes, Roof Lanterns & Skylights.

I’d love to hear from anyone with comments about our site. Please email me though the contact page of the site.

Alan