Jeff,
It was a pretty good meeting, I think. Dave Heller gave a rather thorough talk how he lays out radial cut veneers and he brought a demilune hall table he had done awhile ago to show the finished product. Ron Tatman from Delaware discussed the building of a very nice tilt-top table he brought.
The Montpelier tour was pretty neat. The restoration is done and they are now looking for any pieces that have proven Madison provenance to populate the house. What they do have, as minimal as it is, is pretty good. And they also have a few pieces on loan from CW but those will be heading back down south at some point. The impression I got was they want stuff to call their own. But money is, as always, a consideration. The restoration itself was very nicely done and rivals Monticello and Mount Vernon in attention to craftsmanship and historical accuracy in my opinion.
Another highlite for some us was outside the house where we checked out the stump of the second of three Cedar of Lebanon trees Lafayette gave to Madison on his return trip to the US right before he died. The tree had to be taken down last month because it was diseased and in significant decline. Who got the wood and what will be done with it is a bit of mystery and that, no doubt, is intentional. But judging by the size of the stump and the one remaining healthy tree, there was a bunch of wood. Whoever did the work really scrubbed the place clean.
What we didn't do at the meeting was to decide on the chapter expansion and name change that we've been talking about recently. Joe suggested we hold that in abeyance until next meeting.
In a nutshell,
Rick Yochim
