International Wood International Wood 2008 | Page 61

In keeping with its reputation as a premium business and leisure
destination, Gaylord National greets arriving guests in grand manner.
The red carpeted main lobby is adorned with Italian marble floors and
carved columns, and embraced by exotic wood panels sourced and
created exclusively for the hotel from sustainably harvested waterfall
bubinga and quartered ribboned sapele. These woods are carried
through to the elevator lobbies and cabs.
“We actually had several woods in mind, such as birdseye maple,
during the design and early construction phases,” says Ghent,
“However, they didn’t really have a lot of punch to them. They weren’t
really going to have the effect we wanted for the wood paneling that
was to be installed in the lobby.” So Ghent and Ed Banachoski from
Allegheny Millwork, the Lawrence, Pennsylvania company that fin-
ished the panels for the project, traveled to a veneer showroom in
Jefferson, Indiana to find the perfect look.
“Part of the process we go through involves coordinating the design
details with the architect,” says Banachoski. “Through meetings with
Gensler, and the shop drawing and submittal process, we developed the
final details on the materials for the lobby paneling, elevator cabs and
whatnot. We set up a site meeting with the veneer supplier to review
flitches of veneer so we could make the final selections.”
Waterfall bubinga was nowhere near the original spec, says
Banachoski.
“While reviewing different veneer flitches, Don Ghent was shown
the bubinga and he really took a liking to it.”
“Our veneer suppliers are self-proclaimed collectors of woods, and
have been involved in a lot of sustainable work,” says Ghent. “When
they see something they like, they buy it and put it in their warehouse.
They just happened to have had huge, wonderful logs of this bubinga
shipped in from Africa. This cut has a texture that actually does fit
its name, ‘waterfall.’ You see this beautiful red-purple ribbon running
through it that looks like a waterfall, and when you stain it, it really
brings out the color.
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