EMERGING ENTREPRENEURS

Renaissance craftsman

	TRR photo by Charlie Buterbaugh Larry Braverman combines different materials to accomplish the job at hand, in this case a steel cone frame that will support a redwood bathhouse. (Click for larger image)

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

BEACH LAKE, PA — Larry Braverman’s craftsmanship can be seen in a converted barn in Milanville, a house in Yulan, a bank in Milford, in kitchen cabinets, countertops and hardwood floors, and the list goes on.

While he describes himself initially as a cabinet maker, he is really a wood and metal fabricator who enjoys combining different materials to complete custom made projects, something many craftsmen are hesitant to do.

He is presently working on a steel frame for a bathhouse with a bathroom, shower and sauna, shelled with salvaged redwood walls from old water tanks and a copper roof.

Before that, he spent serious time with architect Peter Levine converting a pre-Civil War era barn into a second home in Milanville, PA. He made all of the cedar siding, the window boxes and sashes, the yellow pine floors, and he preserved the original hand-hewn structural beams as well as barn timber to make sliding doors that draw away to expose a sheet of windows overlooking the Upper Delaware.

	TRR photo by Charlie Buterbaugh (Click for larger image)

Working with Levine, Braverman saved an 1850s structure, enclosing it with new materials so that the old could become an integral part of a modern living space. The project was featured in the May 2003 issue of dwell magazine.

He calls his style a mix of traditional and modern minimalism, though he does not create the original concepts behind his handmade cabinets, furniture, countertops, or other larger structures.

“I work with whatever a job calls for as I custom make pieces based on architectural blueprints,” he said.

His favorite wood to use for cabinets is white oak, and he often limits himself to basic woodworking tools, including routers to mill out wood surfaces, hand-planes and chisels.

“White pine is what I first learned to work with. It is one of the harder woods, and it makes your tools dull, so not many people like to work with it,” he said.

Braverman decided he wanted to become a cabinet maker when he was in kindergarten. He often worked on frames as a child, and the men he eventually went to work for had come from the old apprentice system. Working under their fussy expectations, he compelled himself to craft perfect, flawless edges, and he has never faltered. “My thing is precision,” he said.

To bring a project to fruition, he often needs to contract work, such as welding for metal staircases, though his desire for perfection usually requires his own methods of straightening edges and squaring corners.

It is his style to accommodate the ideas of his clients, as long as they allow him to do so perfectly.

For more information call 570/729-0000.