Arch Top Cantilever Pergola & Power Posts w/Spiritual Uplift

I have enjoyed photographing arbors, pergolas, gazebos, and pavilions for Western Timber Frame™. It is the vision of our timber-wrights to bring families and people closer together and build up the family. Being an extreme introvert, meeting families over the years has been good for me, to interact in their world for a little bit. Seeing what they have done to their landscape and hearing from them firsthand how much their ShadeScape™ has blessed their lives has also been a lot of fun. However,  photographing today’s featured project, was the ultimate spiritual high because of the family.

When I first saw the plans Design Manager Brian Thompson did for this pergola, I wanted very much to photograph it.

The pergola is a unique structure; an 8,000 Series Pergola Kit with a full arch top and arched cantilevered roof for a poolhouse.  It features TimberVolt™ power posts which usually means the family plans on installing lights! Although it takes more time,  evening and night photographs my favorite to shoot. Rhoda welcomed me to come.

When I arrived I rode got to ride inside an elevator to go to the backyard. That for me was fun.  Then we ventured into the backyard where I met a handsome young man, Christian. Christian, their grandson was injured in a head-on car accident. In a wheelchair completely paralyzed for six years ago,  his face glowed with a radiant joy that is seldom experienced except in the presence of innocence. No one can help but love Christian, he is the essence of love.

The pergola was installed to give shade for the family, but particularly for Christian to enjoy the outdoors and the pool that allows Christian to have his wheelchair wheeled down into the water.

Everywhere, the home and landscape is designed to help care for Christian who lives next door. Having two precious handicapped granddaughters of my own, I was deeply touched by the sincerity of the Rhoda who offered me to bring them anytime to enjoy Christian’s pool. There is a depth to people having gone through great pain in life, and not having imbittered them, gain an immeasurable greatness and softness of the soul that is not obtained through any other means.

If I had left at that time, I would have gone home already on a spiritual high, but only as we were about to leave (my husband had come with me), Rhoda shared with us this story of her daughter, Merilee. Merilee who is Christian’s mother was blind in one eye and could barely see in the other having to press her nose on a computer screen to see anything at all. Doctor’s said she would eventually become totally blind. Then one day they called and told them they wanted to do an experimental operation on her Merilee’s eyes. After the operation, her daughter was now totally blind in both eyes.

Rhoda said she had asked God for many things especially in regards to Christian but this time she said, “I didn’t ask God, I told God. I told him Merilee needs to see.” The next day they removed the bandages and Merilee has 20/20 vision!  She said the doctors were high-fiving each other and ecstatic! She knew God had given Merilee her sight. It was a moment I wish I could have recorded,  her own testimony, her story without the awareness of a camera in her face. Rhoda is to me, as beautiful as Christian.

Thank you, Rhoda, and thank-you to all of your family.

Creating awesome outdoor living areas for families to spend time with each other and build their relationships is the dream of the families at Western Timber Frame™. It is the people, the families, their stories, that make our work so complete.