‘Faux Bois’ Treasure Renewed at Huntington Gardens

Terry Eagan touching up the ‘faux bois’ (Photo – huntington.org).

Sunday afternoon, November 11, 2018, is a perfect day to visit the Huntington Library and Gardens. At 2:30 p.m., a documentary will be screened in the new theater about repairing, refurbishing and restoring the faux bois.

By Jean Sudbury

These artistic sculptures support the beautiful rose vines and wisteria planted along the sidewalks. Terence Eagan began the restoration project in 2010, bringing new life to a hundred of these deteriorating gems. In his narrative, Terry describes the history of the faux bois at the Huntington and how he made them functional again, stronger in fact than they ever were before. The project took him eight years to complete. The documentary focuses on the details of rebuilding one faux bois.

What is faux bois?

In French, faux bois means ‘false wood.’ The history of the craft goes back to the Renaissance as trompe l’oile.  It is a free hand sculpture technique to imitate the natural look of tree branches. The faux bois at the Huntington withstood the elements of nature for nearly a century before the need to repair them became noticeably imminent. Terry Eagan came to the rescue and began the long task of making the natural-looking structures strong again. He gave a new consistency to the one hundred faux bois trees which support the wisteria and rose vines.

Henry Huntington and his wife, Arabella, were fascinated with Japanese gardens and the French culture. In 1913, they traveled to France and were drawn in by the charm of faux bois in Parisian gardens. In 1915, Mr. Huntington commissioned the construction of a pergola made with a hundred faux bois to support their newly planted wisteria and vining roses. Over time, due to flaws in the construction, rust from the steel rebar leaked out from various places and weakened the reinforced concrete. The pergola became unsightly and potentially dangerous.

The documentary was produced by Michael E. Stern, award-winning, Los Angeles-based photographer. His specialties include time lapse photography and still shots. He and Terry worked together “like two peas in a pod” to create this enlightening documentary. Jean Sudbury added a meditative flow with her original music, recorded for the documentary at Southwest sound, a Sierra Madre recording studio. Jean is a Los Angeles-area string player, composer, yoga meditation teacher and avid gardener. She plays violin, viola, mandolin, mandola, accordion and melodica. She chose the mandola for this project, its dulcet tone creating just the right savoir faire for the movie.

You can share the magic of creativity and restoration in the garden by attending this free event. After the screening, guests are invited to walk to the faux bois for discussion, celebration, questions and answers.

> Screening of Terry Eagan’s Faux Bois restoration project documentary will be shown at the Huntington Gardens’ new theater on Sunday, November 11 from 2:30-3:30 p.m.