The River View at Occoquan Celebrates Grand Opening
River-Recovered® Heart Cypress Helps This Modern Event Space Give a Nod to the Area’s Rich Culture and History
Goodwin Company, pioneers of River-Recovered® heart pine and cypress, is excited to celebrate the grand opening of The River View at Occoquan Regional Park, which is part of the NOVA (Northern Virginia) park system. This wedding and event facility located at 9751 Ox Road in Lorton, Virginia officially opens on Saturday, June 23rd at 2:30pm. The building features 4200 square feet of custom 1×6 exterior siding milled from Goodwin’s River-Recovered Heart Cypress Select grade. Additionally, another 1000 linear feet of River-Recovered Heart Cypress Select grade lumber is used as cladding on the site’s stand-alone pavilion.
Nestled along the banks where Virginia’s Occoquan River gently flows into the Potomac River, this beautiful and modern event space gives a nod to the areas rich culture and history. Heart cypress was the perfect material for this project given its superior exterior use properties and the area’s documented history with the species. Captain John Smith of Jamestown Colony fame made a circumnavigation of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in 1608. Smith recounts in his journals seeing bald cypress trees as much as 18 feet in circumference, and up to 80 feet tall without a branch. Some trees were so large that a canoe made from a single tree could hold 40 men. The foyer of the River View will be referred to as the 1608 room and will detail Smith’s voyage with story boards and a large compass rose on the floor.
“Goodwin Company is often specified in projects like these because of our dedication to ensuring each and every log is carefully recovered, graded and milled to the highest standards,” explains Carol Goodwin, President of Goodwin Company. “It was important that this modern space included an accurate representation of the grand bald cypress trees that Captain John Smith was enamored with and so fondly wrote about.”
Senior Associate, Lisa Andrews with GWWO Architects in Baltimore, Maryland specified River-Recovered Heart Cypress after visiting The Naples Botanical Garden and seeing the wood Goodwin milled for that project. A&D Construction installed the siding, and Forrester Construction was the general contractor.
For more information on the June 23rd grand opening, please contact Cori Talbot or Carson Eonta at 571-477-3874 or riverview@nvrpa.org.
