Cedar joinery, not deck-screw carpentry.
Pergolas, garden pavilions, fences, arbors, gates, and raised beds — built from rot-resistant Eastern white cedar, joined with mortise and tenon, finished to last twenty-five years.
— Why most cedar work disappoints
Cedar is the easiest wood to ruin.
It’s soft. It moves. It checks. It silvers. Built right, it asks nothing of you for two decades. Built wrong, it demands a stain coat every spring and falls apart by year ten.
Stainless screws every six inches.
Faster to install. Visually noisy. The joints have no mechanical engagement, so the structure racks the first time a kid swings on the post.
Dimensional lumber instead of milled stock.
Big-box 4x4s are softwood pine stained to look like cedar. Two seasons of UV and they’re checked open like firewood.
Posts buried directly in concrete.
Water collects between the wood and the cement. The post rots from the inside out, six inches below grade. By the time you see it, the structure is leaning.
Stained, then re-stained, then re-stained.
Stain seals UV in, not out. Cedar wants to silver. Forced staining traps moisture and accelerates rot at the joints. Most clients give up by year four.
— Cedar, by the numbers
— What we build
Seven cedar specialties.
Cedar is a soft, beautiful, rot-resistant wood that wants to be built carefully. Every one of these uses traditional joinery and proper foundation detail.
Cedar pergolas
Free-standing or attached. 6×6 or 8×8 milled posts on stand-off bases. Beams notched and pinned. Rafter tails proportioned to the post diameter.
Garden pavilions
Full-roof structures — cedar shake, standing-seam metal, or membrane. Sized for ten to twenty at a long table. Often combined with hardscape.
Custom cedar fencing
Board-on-board, picket, horizontal slat, or shadow-box. Posts on concrete piers above frost line. No fence-panel kits.
Garden gates
Hand-built single or double gates with mortised hinges and traditional hardware. Designed to swing true for thirty years.
Arbors & trellises
Climbing structures for clematis, wisteria, climbing rose. Built to support the mature plant load, not just the first season.
Cedar raised beds
Vegetable and pollinator beds in 2x cedar with corner posts and stainless hardware. Typically 18″ or 24″ deep, sized to the gardener’s reach.
Cedar gazebos
Six- or eight-sided pavilions with hipped or pyramid roofs. Designed as the focal point of the garden, sized to the property scale.
— How a cedar project moves
Four steps. Three to nine months.
Cedar work moves faster than hardscape — most pergolas and pavilions install in two to three weeks once material arrives. Lead time on milled cedar is typically four to eight weeks.
Site visit
Two-hour walk of the property with the architect. We listen, you talk. We measure light, slope, drainage, and existing material. No PowerPoint.
Design
Hand-drawn schematic on tracing paper, then full construction drawings — material specs, sections, footing detail. Two reviews built in.
Quote
Fixed-price proposal, line-itemed by trade. Stone, timber, plants, labor, equipment, drainage. You see the math. Change orders signed before any change happens.
Build
Our in-house crew, on site every working day. Weekly progress photos. The architect walks the site at every major milestone. We don’t leave until the punch list is empty.
— Recent cedar work
Three recent structures.
Lakefront master plan, 2½ acres.
Three terraced rooms stepping down to Lake Champlain. 240 ft of dry-laid stone wall, cedar pavilion, native pollinator beds.
Read project →
Seven-terrace hilltop garden.
Re-grading a north-facing slope into seven dry-stone-walled terraces of perennials, fruit trees, and a 60-foot meditation walk.
Read project →
1,400 sq ft contemporary courtyard.
Bluestone paving, cedar slat screening, a small reflecting pool, and three Japanese maples for autumn color.
Read project →Pergola, gate, arbor, or raised beds
$8K–$45Ktypical install
Most single cedar structures land between $8K (a built-in raised bed system) and $45K (a substantial pergola with hardscape footing). Pavilions and gazebos run higher.
Full-roof outdoor room
$45K–$140Kcomplete build
Includes foundation, posts, roof system, electrical pre-wire, and integration with surrounding hardscape. Custom design fee included.
— Cedar questions
What clients ask before we build.
Should I stain my cedar to keep the color?
We don’t recommend it. Cedar wants to silver — it’s the natural protective response to UV. Stains seal moisture in at joints and accelerate rot. The silver patina is beautiful, structurally protective, and zero-maintenance. If you really want to preserve the warm color, we’ll point you to a UV-blocking clear oil that needs reapplication every 18 months.
What’s the difference between Eastern and Western red cedar?
Eastern white cedar grows in Vermont, Maine, and the Adirondacks. It’s tighter-grained, more rot-resistant for our climate, and supports our local mills. Western red cedar is also good, but it’s softer, more expensive (cross-country shipping), and we have no relationship with the source. We use Eastern unless a client specifically requests Western.
How long does cedar last untreated?
Eastern white cedar built with proper joinery and foundation detail (post bases above grade, drainage at footings, no end-grain in standing water) will last 25 years before structural attention is needed. Some elements — pickets, slats — may need replacement at 15 years. Posts and beams typically go 30+.
Why mortise-and-tenon instead of metal connectors?
Two reasons. First, traditional joinery doesn’t introduce a different material at the connection — the joint moves with the wood, doesn’t trap moisture, doesn’t show rust streaks. Second, the structure looks honest. A pergola post with bolt-on Simpson hardware has a different language than one with a clean tenon and oak peg.
Can you match an existing structure on my property?
Often yes. If you have an existing cedar structure (a fence, gate, arbor) and want a new piece to match, we’ll measure the proportions, source matching stock, and replicate the joinery. Send photos during the site visit.
What about wind loads on a tall pergola?
Anything over 9 ft post height in our climate gets engineered for wind load — cross-bracing, deeper footings, or attachment to the house. We design every pergola to current Vermont code; for unusual sites (lakefront, hilltop) we’ll spec a stamped engineering review.