Atlanta man creates furniture from tornado-felled trees

When the March 14 tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta, it left a path of destruction that still scars the city’s skyline.

Amid the rubble of that horrible night, Stephen Evans saw an opportunity.

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Chandler Brown/cmbrown@ajc.com

Stephen Evans, 30, of Atlanta plans to turn tornado-damaged trees into furniture to raise money for Oakland Cemetery’s restoration.

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Chandler Brown//cmbrown@ajc.com

Stephen Evans has parts of four large trees, two from the historic cemetery and two from the Cabbagetown area, to work with.

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“I knew something good could come of something so bad,” said Evans, a 30-year-old self-employed furniture maker.

Months later, he’s making it happen.

Evans, who lives near tornado-ravaged Cabbagetown, is turning storm-damaged trees into furniture. One piece — a bench made from a huge white oak that fell in Oakland Cemetery — will be auctioned off, with proceeds going to the Oakland Cemetery Foundation.

“It’s just the right thing to do,” Evans said during a recent tour of his wood-working shop near West End Mall. “We all have to do our part.”

Evans has parts of four large trees, two from the historic cemetery and two from the Cabbagetown area. The bench will be sold at a fund-raiser marking the one-year anniversary of the tornado. He will sell the other pieces privately.

The trees are being dried out now. He plans to start building the furniture in January.

“This is great wood. You couldn’t find this anywhere else around here,” Evans marveled, pointing at the huge oak stump. The tornado cut a path of destruction through downtown Atlanta, ripping out windows of high-rises and uprooting trees from Vine City to Decatur. One man died. At Oakland Cemetery, just east of downtown Atlanta, huge trees were toppled alongside headstones and other historic markers. Notables buried at Oakland Cemetery include Margaret Mitchell, Bobby Jones and Maynard Jackson.

Besides Evans, a few other civic-minded folks have come forward offering to make jewelry and dishes out of Oakland’s discarded trees, but nothing on the scale of Evans’ operation, said Kevin Kuharic of the Historic Oakland Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the city-owned and operated park.

“It’s really very touching for the community to come forward and say, ‘We want to do something for the community,’ ” said Kuharic, who’s organizing Oakland’s restoration efforts. “The community is really behind Oakland’s survival.”

After the storm, Kuharic met with Evans and a few others with similar ideas. He agreed to give them the downed trees if they would make something to sell at an auction benefiting the cemetery.

Evans didn’t think twice.

“The next day, [he and girlfriend Sara Hardy] were out there with chain saws getting the wood,” Evans said.

“It was a good feeling, doing something to help out after a disaster,” said Hardy, a Turner executive. “It felt good.”

Evans, who makes all kinds of furniture, plans to turn the tornado trees into coffee tables and perhaps other oblong-shaped pieces he specializes in.

“He’s a pleasant guy to work with,” Kuharic said. “We have really high hopes for what he comes up with.”

Evans is more humble.

“I hope I can make something half as nice as that cemetery,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”