Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
WINOOSKI — On Wednesday morning, August 12, children playing and adults out for their morning walks stopped to watch as workers lifted the walls of a new wooden structure into place at Landry Park.
The 20-by-24-foot open-air pavilion is constructed out of old timbers from a building that was being torn down. Built by Winooski resident and lifelong craftsman Thomas Locatell, the pavilion will be a gathering area for community members to seek shade on a sunny day and enjoy each other’s company.
After three years in the making, community service director Ray Coffey, said he got emotional seeing the walls go up.
“This has been kind of a long journey to get here, and I think it’s really satisfying to see it finally in this final stage. It’s pretty cool,” he said.
Locatell, who has lived in Winooski for eight years, has made a hobby of salvaging discarded or underused wood for his projects, not wanting it to go to waste. He uses hand tools for nearly all of his work, which consists mostly of furniture, and describes his process as simple but not easy.
The city first became aware of Locatell in the midst of the pandemic when staff began getting strange phone calls about a man in the woods with an axe. It turned out to be Locatell, who had been taking daily walks in Gilbrook Nature Area and noticed some fallen trees, which he would later use to make benches for the park.
“I’ve always got an eye out for what I can use that somebody else is gonna throw away,” he said.
The city loved Locatell’s work and tried to reach out to him, hoping to bring him on as a formal city volunteer, Coffey said. Staff even tried stapling business cards to his benches, attempting to get his attention. Eventually Locatell connected with Coffey, and he continued making benches for community areas.
Around the same time, Coffey offered Locatell an unused space at the O’Brien Community Center on Malletts Bay Avenue. This became Locatell’s workshop, where he could craft personal projects and items for the city.
Like his other projects, Locatell stumbled across the wood for the pavilion while on a walk. In December 2022, a pile of timber began to form on East Allen Street as an old building was torn down. Locatell was impressed with the quality of the wood and asked the crew if he could have some scraps.
After talking to the developer, Nathan Dagesse, Locatell ended up with a lot more than scraps. Dagesse gave Locatell almost all of the wood, which ranged from four-to six-foot-long timbers.
Because the building was quite old, Dagesse chose to do a gentle teardown, instead of using an excavator which would destroy the beams.
“We thought, hey, there’s gotta be something cool we can do with these. We really didn’t know what we were gonna find. We just knew the age of the building, that there was a good chance that they’d have some character and some cool history,” he said.
Dagesse and his team discovered that the timber likely came from pine trees that first started growing in the 1600s. Pine is a softwood, but according to Dagesse, its superb quality made it almost like a hardwood tree.
As he waited for winter to end, Locatell contemplated what to do with the wood. Eventually he and Coffey settled on making a timber frame. Locatell used a traditional method of creating holes and pegs to put the posts together.
“It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle when you’re all done,” he said.
Dagesse and his team helped with the engineering and making sure the pavilion was structurally sound. A roof will be installed in the coming weeks.
As the beams laid in Landry Park, waiting to be mounted, the city received a variety of inquiries from locals.
“There’s been a lot of interest and curiosity, and that’s been fun to see,” Coffey said.
Now that the pavilion is raised, Coffey said the city hopes people will use it for family gatherings or picnics.
For Coffey, the very local nature of the project makes it all the more exciting.
“This project feels very Winooski,” he said. “To have this local community member who’s volunteering his time happen upon these timbers and the developer being willing to let them go — and even go so far as to come over with equipment and staff to help out — is such a unique community project.”
In true Locatell style, none of the wood he got from Dagesse has gone to waste. In the lot where the East Allen Street building once stood is a new homegoods store called Dwellness. Among the shop’s wares is an assortment of furniture made by Locatell, using the wood from the original building.