A Quick Story...

You may be wondering why this bench is on our web site.  Well, as far as we can tell this bench marks the early beginning of Schiller Construction.  At the age of 11, a young Clarke Schiller II headed to summer school at the local middle school.  One of the classes his mom signed him up for that summer was wood shop.  The summer class project was to build a bird house.  Clarke did not think that was quite challenging enough and wanted to build a picnic bench that he had found a blueprint for in a copy of "Popular Mechanics" magazine.  Initially his teacher said "There is no way an 11 year old kid can build this bench".  Eventually (with a lot of help from his Mom) he was given permission to attempt this "so-called" picnic bench. With the magazine in hand and a pile of wood bought at the local lumber yard, Clarke set out to build the bench.  On the last day of summer school the shop teacher helped strap the completed bench to the top of the family station wagon and it headed home.  Over the past 40+ years the bench has has been in constant use by 3 generations of the Schiller Family and continues to be used to this day.  To date the bench remains completely original and has not been modified or updated in anyway.

 
Photo Nov 17, 4 18 45 PM.jpg

Although Schiller Construction was technically founded 15 years later, we like to think of this picnic bench as our true beginning. The strength, durability and simplicity of the bench has directed SCI for many years, and these values are still evident in the work we do today.