Pennsylvania Observation Tower

A scouting stand that kept growing.

This owner has been building with us for about fifteen years, with eight or ten projects behind us, so when he called about an observation tower, the conversation started simply. He wanted a place on the property to scout from, and maybe hunt from.

It didn’t stay simple. Over five or six rounds of drawings, the tower grew into something with more presence: a white oak structure anchoring the entrance to the property, with four canted posts that splay into curved braces and a pagoda-style hip roof over a platform 22 feet up.

The railings have a story of their own. We were designing heavy timber railings and stairs in a Cape Dutch style for another of his projects at Alys Beach, Florida, and he liked them enough to ask for the same treatment here. The X-pattern panels now wrap the landing and the upper platform.

We planned on about a week and a half to raise the tower. It took closer to three weeks. The weather slowed us down, white oak is as heavy and hard as ever, and the installation had more to it than we’d allowed for. We shared the day-to-day challenges on Instagram as we went, and plenty of people followed along until we finally set the roof frame with snow coming down.

It was a longer job than we expected, but one of the most fun we’ve had on site.