Middle Georgia woodworker builds community

David Green loves all things wood. He has a couple of shipping containers and sheds full of it.

He has heart pine from a house he salvaged in Gordon. He has western red cedar from an old Holiday Inn. He has wooden set pieces he helped make for one of the Doctor Strange movies.

A woodworker by trade, he said his ultimate dream is being able to take his clients out to the woods that surround his property and have them pick out the tree they want their table or door made out of.

“I’m gonna fall that tree,” he said. “I’m gonna take it to my sawmill, cut it up in my sawmill, let it air dry. Once it dries, like an inch, a foot a year … I’ll take it, I’ll mill it up. I’ll turn it into a table, and then I’ll hand deliver it to your house.”

Green describes himself as a “dreamer and a builder” as while he mainly makes tables and doors to support his wife and two kids, his real goal is to build a place that invites people to explore nature.

He lives in what was his grandparents’ home on a lake, with his workshop right down the road next to a building his family sold hamburgers and hotdogs out of.

Green mainly builds tables and the “best doors in the area.” His projects take a few weeks at a time, but he’s constantly balancing his time between different things.

He also works at 7th Street Salvage in downtown Macon, where he makes custom tables and doors.

Brent Meyer, owner of 7th Street Salvage, said when Green came in he had a strong foundation of woodworking skills, and they’ve learned from each other.

Instead of using nails or store-bought wood, Green uses traditional jointing techniques — which is also what they do at 7th Street Salvage — which he said makes his builds more durable and “fluctuate with time.”

“You use the old growth stuff, just having done that enough, you really get to see the difference in quality,” Green said. “I build to last a lifetime, not to last 20 years or 40 years.”

Green graduated from Stratford Academy in 2002 before traveling around and going on to learn how to build wooden boats in Port Townsend, Washington, the “self-proclaimed wooden boat building capital of the world.”

He got laid off during the pandemic, as there wasn’t much need for boat makers, and returned to Middle Georgia in 2020 where he started a family and his own shop.

His family has owned the land in Jones County since the 1900s, he said, where they grew trees and ran Dame’s Ferry, the latter of which had much more financial success during the Great Depression.

He said it’s difficult to be a timber farmer nowadays because at one point so many people grew trees that there’s too many and local mills have been bought up by Canadian companies, squeezing landowners and growers.

“This used to be a thriving community,” he said. “There used to be a community store here, there used to be a sawmill here, there used to be a school here … there’s nobody here anymore, so I’m trying to bring that back.”

He said he believes in the idea of “if you build it they will come.” Part of that mission is his company Ocmulgee Outdoor Expeditions, which offers kayak expeditions and river floats.

He’s also been building up 22 acres into a fish camp and campground that people can access via the Ocmulgee River, with his current big project there being his treehouse, which overlooks the river.

It’s built out of heart pine and Western Red Cypress, which Green said he likes for its natural insect repellent properties. The frame is also built using mortise and tenon jointing.

The treehouse will not only be an AirBNB but will also serve as a bathroom for people using the other parts of the campsite, as part of Green River Cabins, a company Green started with his friend Eric Lassiter.

Lassiter said Green is a talented builder. They began building the campground three years ago, after discussing their own experiences on the river.

“I think collectively that’s one of our goals just to bring the river and bring those experiences to more people, however we can,” he said.

Right now, they offer a handful of primitive campgrounds for people to access the river, but Green and Lassiter plan to build more treehouses and create more trails.

Lassiter said they’re a bit behind where they want to be, but time is Green’s most valuable resource.

Green said he’s “not constrained by time.” He plans on building until he’s 80 years old.

“My goal is to get those people in here, off the internet, on the river and spend some time outside,” he said. “Otherwise, places like this will cease to exist.”

For those same reasons, he said he wants to get his kids involved with the outdoors.

Back at home, Green has a garden and a muscadine orchard. He has a small man-made beach. He raises chickens and has two goats. He’s been working on a tiny house that he strapped up and transported onto the banks of the lake.

He said he loves having these multiple projects going on at once so that he can bounce around and start and stop as he feels like it. They’re additional ways to put food on the table, he added.

“Everything out here is an experiment,” Green said. “I think that’s what life is, it’s just a bunch of experiments.”

Green can be reached via his Instagram, @davidgreentimberworks.