Conservatory: A Wondrous Gift

by DIG-IT

When you step into the brand new conservatory at Springfest Flower & Garden Show in Sussex County, New Jersey, you know you have entered a realm of elegance and serenity. In this glass and mahogany building made for plants, you may just want to go to a ball dressed in a slinky long gown.

Decked out in chandeliers and waiting for its LEED certification, this polished conservatory is no slouch. It is a gift from Beverly and Bruce Gordon, Newton, NJ, residents,” to the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show, New Jersey State Fair and to the Springfest committee and the Springfest group that does the Springfest event,” says Bev Gordon. The building debuts now at Springfest, and this August will make its next full blown appearance at the fair.

The 5,000 square-foot conservatory has southern yellow pine laminated arches with red mahogany everywhere else. A mahogany and glass cupola, and tan shades that still let a golden sun permeate the space. Electric and heating cables and water pipes are under a concrete floor. The two vestibules that connect the building to a greenhouse and the Farm Fun building will have green roofs come May.

“It’s quite beautiful actually,” says Bev Gordon. “It’s pretty classic and because it’s at the fair, it had to fit in even though it’s more elegant than the rest of the buildings there. It’s pretty classical in a contemporary way.”

Robert Suman, president of Creative Conservatories, builders, adds: “We took some other buildings used for farm shows and integrated material. The roof is a standing seam metal roof used on barns a lot.”

In order to get LEED certification, the builders used high performance glass with low heat and low emissivity. The glass reduces heat gain in summer and increases insulation value in winter. It is filled with argon gas, which slows down the rate of heat exchange. The solid mahogany roof is insulated with foam.

All pine is FSC certified. Southern yellow pine is a generic term for several pine species growing including loblolly, shortleaf, longleaf and slash pines. They used a low VOC mahogany stain to reduce air pollution. The building has an Energy Star HVAC and they all scrap is recycled.

“The LEED consultant has guided us through all design criteria that gets us a certification that gets us to the LEED,” says Suman. “We wanted LEED certification because the donors are concerned about the environment.”

Until this year, a tent inhabited the spot. But flooding and blow downs put the bug into the Springfest committee.

So, how can it be, such a wondrous gift?

“One of the principals in Springfest is my best friend, Louise, and we had spoken a couple times in the past during Springfest,” says Bev Gordon. They’ve always had a tent in the space where the conservatory is built. It would get flooded and it was an issue every year. Every year something would happen. they had an idea for maybe putting a pole building to connect the greenhouse and the Farm Fun building which is a pole building. I talked to my husband and said, ‘what do you think? Maybe we should do this.’ I talked to Louise about it and we talked about what kind of building it could be – something nicer than a pole building. One thing led to another.”

In a county where neighborliness matters and the basic tenets of growing up and sharing, where 4-H is big, where volunteering accomplishes magnificent things, the Gordons wanted to honor their parents. Bruce Gordon grew up in Sussex County attending horse shows at the fair. The Farm and Horse Show has been a part of his life. The gift is testimony.


Springfest Flower & Garden Show: www.springfestgardenshow
Creative Conservatories: www.creativeconservatories.com

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published March 14, 2009