The Ipswich Elm was a sentinel at East and County Streets for over 175 years. The Friends of the Ipswich Public Library (FOL) contacted StudioRossi to create a table for their reading room. What a fantastic opportunity to work with local elm and a storied tree.

What I did not know was the tree was in the form of a massive 48” diameter, 10’  long log in the town DPW yard! Hence the journey began. My first thought was to find a sawyer who would quarter saw the massive log to expose the tree’s grain/history to its fullest extent. To do this the FOL and I contacted Sam Herrick of Herrick Sawmill in Rowley, Mass. Sam agreed to take on the project and patiently milled through almost two centuries of nails and iron embedded in the elm.

Next came the kiln. Berkshire Forest Products graciously agreed to dry the relatively small amount of lumber. After the drying, the lumber finally made its way to my workshop in Manchester. I focused the design