Steve Chappell

Steve Chappell is a builder at heart and a teacher by nature. His journey in timber framing began while traveling on the northern coast of California in the summer of 1970, when by chance he joined a group of individuals in the construction of a joined timber frame. The group was led by a New Englander who grew up playing in his uncle's barn. Inspired by the experience, he moved to Maine in 1973 to study the colonial buildings first hand. One of the earliest pioneers of the revival of timber framing, in 1975 Chappell started what may have been the first timber framing company devoted to designing and building new timber frames since its demise in the early 1900s. Building, teaching, and writing about the craft has been his passion ever since.

As the founder and director of Fox Maple School of Traditional Building in 1983, Chappell has instructed many hundreds of individuals over the past 30 years through hands-on workshops from Maine to California, Argentina to Alaska, Spain to New Mexico and across Canada. As the Editor & Publisher of Joiners' Quarterly, The Journal of Timber Framing & Traditional Building, a magazine he founded in 1983, Chappell has written extensively about timber framing and traditional building. It is through his call to unite in JQ that the first organizing committee, and subsequently, the Timber Framers Guild, was born.