The Four-Post Garden Arbor #15 specifications:

* Soft radius, with mortised slats.
* Arched trusses at 1-5/8" thickness x 3-1/2" or 5-1/2" width.
* Optional Keystone
* Built to your specified radius and width dimensions.
* Shipped fully assembled.

* When accompanying a gate that has an arched top rail, the radius of the arbor and the gate are commonly matched.

Garden Gate Arbor #15-5 shows 5-1/2" wide trusses with a soft arch to match that of the accompanying gate style #20.
The full insert keystone.
Trusses at 3" thickness instead the standard 1-5/8". *Add $375

Orinda, CA

Garden Gate Arbor #15-5 as a free-standing assembly.
Shown with optional Foyer Panels Style #21, with the open grids acting the perfect host for climbing vines. Base Cost +18%

Orinda, CA

Orinda, CA

A good look at the flush-joined grids of the optional Foyer Panel.

Rodney and his new sweetheart Miss Mullens have taken a stroll in the gardens when he learns of her hidden past. The grids. A grid phobia, and he wonders What Else? What else is she hiding and why can't he find a normal girl. Just a normal sweetheart. Is that asking so much?

Orinda, CA

Garden Gate Arbor #15-5 as a free-standing assembly prior to installation of the Foyer Panels and the eventual maturing foliage.

Orinda, CA

The Garden Arbor #15-4 shown with Garden Gate style #20 as a 2-post assembly
Showing Prowell's Arched Corbel #1

Orinda, CA

The Garden Arbor #15-2 shown with Garden Gate style #20, without a keystone.

Here we see the radius of the gate arch considerably softer than that of the arbor, primarily because the gate width is 60". To match the gate radius to that of the arbor would have raised the gate arch, and consequently the overall height of the arbor. To match the arbor radius to the softer gate radius would have altered the aesthetics of the arbor considerably. It's never a cut-and-dry option.

*To critique our own work, or rather the height of the installer's post, the overall approach would have been improved had the arbor been separated from the gate's height by another 8 or so inches.

Orinda, CA
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Mill Valley, CA

An early #15 Gate Arbor as an extension to existing 6x6 posts. The side, or 'Foyer' panels, show arching top rails.

Shown with Garden Gate #57, and Fence Style #2.

Mill Valley, CA

The same Four-Post Garden Arbor photographed 15 years later. The homeowner originally applied a single application of a Cabot Heartwood oil, which gradually grayed out to the weathered look below. Finishing the Prowell products does not prolong their life or preserve their structural integrity.

Your decision to apply a finish should be based upon your visual preference only. To avoid finishes that are less than optimal, please follow the guidelines and suggested products at Pre-Finish Options.

Sausalito, CA

The Original Garden Gate Arbor #15, from 1994. Overlooking the San Francisco Bay.
Again, with an early keystone design that has since been modified.
Both the gate and arbor with the same arching radius.

A good look at the full insert Arbor Keystone.

Set up on Ben Prowell's workbench, where the mortises were cut by hand with a lovely old Stanley #71 Router Plane

The Stanley Router Plane. A lost art, single-handedly being revived.

The cross slats are given a stepped-haunch tenon

The mirrored trusses mortised with their flywheel pattern

Ben fashioning the inlay keystone with the Stanley Router Plane.

This is what happens if you do not insist your installer read the install guides. Here, the mounting rods and screws were ignored, and the arbor was simply seated onto the posts and that was that. But . . . in time the vines and climbers will exert enough pursuasive torque to actually lift the entire arbor off the posts.

The Press Democrat ---1998
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