It started with a simple request: “We just need a deck.” In 2023, the homeowners in Cottage Grove came to us with a straightforward request: a maintenance-free composite deck—in their words, nothing “fancy schmancy.” But when they saw our feature-wall work during that first meeting, the conversation changed. They shared something they held dear: the Witch Tree, an ancient cedar sacred to the Ojibwe, growing improbably out of stone on the shore of Lake Superior. By the end of that meeting, they’d committed to a Witch Tree–themed outdoor living space.
The existing deck hung 10 feet in the air off a walkout basement — rotted and dangerously built. Demolition revealed it was never anchored; only its own weight held it down. The stairs were so deteriorated the family hadn’t used them in eight years. We rebuilt the space completely: a layered metal art feature wall recreating a silhouetted photograph of the Witch Tree against a Lake Superior sunset, a substantial pergola beam structure that wraps the deck into the house, full cladding on every post and beam, rock cladding in place of traditional fascia, a custom stone fire table, and roughly ten integrated lighting features throughout.
Because the Witch Tree is ancient, we made “ancient” the design language. We built the structure to look as if someone raised it by hand in another era. Massive beams are clad in Millboard’s vintage-collection boards, molded from hand-selected 150-year-old French boxcar floorboards for a weathered, centuries-old character. Recreation hand-forged beam straps bind the timbers, secured with 40 hand-hammered, square-head lags custom-made for this project — no two alike. Old-world diagonal cross-bracing and a rock-clad rim complete the effect: a structure that feels as if it grew out of the bedrock.
This build demanded techniques we developed specifically for it. We etched the entire sunset scene into quarter-inch aluminum with an angle grinder and finished it with hand-mixed translucent paints, applied in a single session because we had only one chance to get it right. The hardest problem was making the sunset actually set: a light on a flat panel glows in all directions, so we layered the artwork dimensionally, standing the water panel off three-quarters of an inch and hiding a V-shaped light strip behind it at the sun’s position. The light blazes at the horizon and fades naturally as it spreads. The tree silhouette steps in thickness across those layers to stay flush, which meant two full days of precision-drilling fiber-optic holes through three-quarter-inch aluminum.
The favorite feature is the shimmering tree. The wall runs on two separate light engines—one for the stars, one for the tree’s leaves. The canopy can glow lush green, swirl through autumn colors, or switch off entirely, leaving a striking black silhouette against the sunset. The decking is Deckorators mineral-based board — pulverized limestone and HDPE with zero organic content, so it will never rot, cup, or grow algae. A custom fire table crafted by a Minnesota artisan, who slices whole boulders and water-jet cuts the burner opening, serves as an organic centerpiece. The family finally has a deck they can trust again, beneath a scene that means something personal every time the sun goes down.
