David Robinson
Rustic log furniture & garden architecture
Trenton, 609-392-6469
Stroll through New York’s Central Park Zoo, and you’ll likely see a bench built by David Robinson. Meander in Cadwalader Park in Trenton, Llewellyn Park in West Orange or the National Arboretum in Washington D.C., and you’ll come across his handmade gazebos. One of the nation’s preeminent rustic log woodworkers, Robinson crafts his pieces in a fascinatingly dilapidated, century-old foundry building in Trenton. It’s a space he’s occupied for 20-some years, and it’s as distinctive as the pieces he crafts there.
In 1986, after six years as a field supervisor for the restoration of Central Park, he decided to launch his own venture crafting the kinds of structures he had been maintaining. “As a little kid, I was always making little wooden go-carts and tree houses,” he says. His business started with public-park commissions. Soon his clientele included homeowners clamoring for his rustic gazebos, benches, gates and pool arbors, as well as interior furnishings like headboards, cabinets and tables. “I float between the art world and the landscape-architecture world,” he says.
Although a few workers assist him on big projects, Robinson essentially runs a one-man show—even tracking down his raw materials, often with tractor and chain saw. “I’m out in the woods two, three, four days a month,” he says. “I’ve found myself 20 miles out a dirt road looking for logs”—with permission, of course. State agents sometimes call Robinson in when they are cutting back trees. He salvages the interesting pieces. “It’s all very green and proper,” he says. “It’s thinning the woods for the property owner.”
Robinson works primarily in red cedar, but also mountain laurel, locust, Osage orange and other woods with character. “I let the pieces of wood be what they are,” he says. “It is what it is, I’m just highlighting it.” For some pieces, Robinson applies a water-based sealer; others he leaves untreated. “People like them to turn a silvery color,” he says. “That happens naturally.”
Robinson’s trademark bench sells for around $1,600. His birdhouses, each different, sell for $50 to $300. His latest commission is a picnic arbor at Buck Garden in Far Hills. After that, who knows? “I don’t have a plan,” he says. “I just respond to what comes my way. I’m kind of a spontaneous kind of guy.”
Click here to read about other New Jersey artisans.