Battling arthritis, famed Limerick woodworker hands over school and studio
Thirteen years ago, arthritis began creeping into Jeffry Lohr's spine, bit by bit stiffening it until he was unable to bend over.
Thirteen years ago, arthritis began creeping into Jeffry Lohr's spine, bit by bit stiffening it until he was unable to bend over.
That would be a life-changer for anyone, but for a master woodworker, it augured the end of the art and craft that had defined him and brought him national renown. The disease progressed to the point that if a nail tumbled from his worktable, he could not pick it up.
If there was any saving grace, it was that his hands were spared.
So, with medication to keep the pain at bay, the 63-year-old Limerick craftsman has continued creating the traditional furniture that is his signature, as well as free-form pieces that incorporate a tree's edges. But a more onerous matter has been the celebrated woodworking studio and school he runs on his 13-acre farm.
Lohr has decided to step aside, and turn over JD Lohr Woodworking to two proteges.
"It was a real stress in my life," he said. "I've had offers to break up the farm and sell it, but I want it to [be dedicated to] crafting and farming, and whoever lives here to make a living" from the land.
Lohr is entrusting the business he nurtured for 30 years to Robert Spiece, a master woodworker, and Larissa Huff, a journeyman who apprenticed under Lohr.
They are taking the helm at a time when woodworking is enjoying a boomlet among hobbyists, many of whom want a counter to a sedentary work life at a computer, said Tim Snyder, editor of Woodcraft Magazine.
The Lohr school and studio, on North Limerick Road, is one of the best in the nation, Snyder said. Students have traveled from as far as India, Sweden, and Africa to take classes in basic and advanced woodworking.
One former student runs the Moringa Community School of Trades in Breman Baako, Ghana. Lohr and his wife, Linda, helped develop the seven-year-old nonprofit to teach woodworking, fabric arts, and food preservation to rural Ghanaians.
Each year at his Montgomery County school, Lohr hosts 12 weeklong sessions in his airy workshop, one of five buildings on a farm with 23 chickens, three horses, three pet birds, a German shepherd, and a beagle.
Students saw, sand, and shape woods at work stations surrounded by tools that deck the walls and fill drawers and glass-paned cabinets. Outside, stacks of wood planks dry in the sun, in preparation for their eventual transformation into furniture.
In a recent class, the gray-haired, bearded Lohr, wearing a spotty T-shirt and khaki pants, moved about the workshop, slowly and with slightly hunched shoulders. To 11 students in goggles, he demonstrated how to taper a table leg.
Lohr, the teacher, "has more knowledge than any person I've ever met - and wants to tell you all of it," Huff said.
Lohr, the artist and businessman, runs a studio that "makes furniture people want to buy" and use, not just admire as art, Spiece said.
Lohr's talent surfaced during his rural Lancaster County childhood. With a pen knife, he carved shapes from cardboard boxes. As a teen, he took wood shop in high school and loved it. "I just find so much enjoyment in making things," he said. "I can't not do it."
After earning a bachelor's degree in industrial arts at Millersville University in 1976, he went on to become an award-winning industrial arts teacher at Norristown Area High School. Eventually, though, it was not enough, and in 1989, he quit. He wanted his own business.
Linda Lohr, an environmental chemist, encouraged her husband as he built backyard decks to pay the bills. But the drive to create his own designs was too much to contain.
Lohr started making original pieces, often in the Arts and Crafts style, and peddled them at craft fairs. In 1993, he got a commission to make 20 pieces of furniture for a house in Telluride, Colo. - setting him on a road to success that led to the establishment of his school in 2001.
Soon, though, illness and injury would test him.
In 2003, the arthritis set in. In 2005, he suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. A year later, as he was building a sawmill, the scaffold on which he was standing collapsed. He broke his back, a hip, and a wrist.
He taught classes while strapped to an upright body-length board à la Hannibal Lecter. But he couldn't make furniture. "I nearly lost everything," Lohr said.
His salvation came in the form of patrons Jeremy and Debby Allen, who had commissioned a $78,000 table, to be made from a single slab of wood big enough to seat 14. Unable to work, Lohr encouraged the Allens to find another woodworker. They refused, instead waiting for him to recover.
"That was so meaningful for me," he said, his voice breaking as he recounted their kindness. "It became a healing project for me."
As the years passed, and his back grew stiffer, Lohr began to think - no, worry - about the future. He had no children. Who would continue what he had started?
Huff and Spiece, among 18 apprentices he had trained, showed Lohr the unshakable work ethic he sought. Spiece has worked with him for 10 years; Huff for four.
As the new owners, they will keep the business on the farm and live there. Lohr and his wife will remain, as well.
Lohr says he will make cameo appearances as a teacher, and will continue woodworking, with a new freedom.
"Even though I'm retiring, I will still be working. I don't have to worry about making something to sell, or pleasing a client. I can make whatever I like," Lohr said. "It'll be the best time of my life."
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