WOOD GARDEN FENCE #1

This Wood Fence Style is Base Price (Without Open Slots)
Base Price + 5% (With Open Slots)
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Available to a maximum width of 60″

Ross, CA

Wood Garden Fence Panel #1 is our original Wood Fence Panel Design. Appropriately titled #1.

Number one. When we hear that, referring to a sporting competition or a front-running political campaign, we naturally make associations. The best of the lot. But here it simply refers to the original prototype. When successful, the prototype is subsequently commissioned for its maiden debut on the market, as with Fence Style #1. In wildly successful scenarios, it results in a history of recurring commission too numerous to display even on this bulbous web site.

Following 3 years in the early 1990’s spent developing the original stile and rail garden gate, Prowell turned his attention to a methodology for a matching fence panel. Although the original result has not changed it’s basic aesthetics, there have been more improvements and structural modifications than we can list. A near constant progression over the years of making the work better, and better, until it lasts beyond the lives of your grandchildren, and then some.

So what is it’s weakness? Well, the direct impact of a wayward comet is never good. Or car bumpers, felled trees, ballistic games of rugby played by men weighing in at 250 lbs, or a neighboring teenager learning to ride his first motorcycle. With the exception of the hurtling comet, all the above have happened, representing the weak link of what this product can withstand without incurring some level of surgical damage.

Well then, below is that original Fence Design #1, given a place at the start of our gallery as a matter of reverence for it’s veritable history and the delightful young family in Ross, CA who went out on a limb and commissioned what at the time was something new and different.

Although the camera angle is misleading, these are in fact 6×6 posts.

Ross, CA

The Wood Fence Panels are at a polite height of 60″. The hedge has been kept trimmed to an equal height. Because the fence is set back from the road easement, we are allowed 60″ ht. Most codes maintain a maximum front fence height of 42-48″ to 15′ back from the public walkway, or road, before allowing heights up to 72″.

Ross, CA

The 1912 Bungalow. In proportion to the residence, the wood fence panel height at anything beyond 60″ would have effectively upstaged the architecture, as well as the plantings. The purpose of this fence is not to create a private existence from your neighbors and community. It is, moreover, an architectural appendage to the integrity of the residence. Please stroll down this graveled public walkway and pause to lean your elbows atop the fence rail and have a hello to those out on the porch.

Ross, CA

Shown installing the last Fence Panel under the chronicling lens of two photographers out from Sunset Magazine. circa 1996.

Ross, CA

Ben Prowell making one of his earliest on-site appearances. An 11-yr-old who understood how to set the hinges for a gate that hangs straight and plumb.

Ross, CA

After 20+ years we returned to the site.  Shown here, Faye Raelynn Prowell poses at the same gate where her father once posed in the above photo.  

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Berkeley, CA

With the Prowell Post Caps, Style #1

Berkeley, CA

Accommodating a subtle slope by stepping up the drive and along the front walk and down the opposite side in the rear of the photo.

Berkeley, CA

The front elevation. With a mild continuous slope in the grade, the flanking panels on either side of the Entry Gates should be kept aligned to the gates, when possible. Here they’ve decided to step the panel to the right of the gates, thereby losing the continuous horizontal rail alignment. A minor point.

Although not rocket science, configuring the panels over a sloped grade does require a little forethought.

See more on this at: Stepped Panels, and Sloped Grades.

Birmingham, Michigan

One of several projects in Birmingham over the years, and indicative of the outer-lying communities surrounding Detroit. 33 fence panels and two gates. Photographed from our patron’s property.

Birmingham, Michigan

Showing the short return, with gate, to the poolhouse off the south perimeter run.

Birmingham, Michigan

The pool house

Darien, Connecticut

Wooden Fence Panel #1-1 on a lovely property in rural Connecticut, connecting the residence to an outbuilding to create an enclosed garden protected from snacking wildlife. Because of its semi-rural setting, the fence and gate will go unfinished and weather to a silvery gray within a season. — Shown with Gate style #7.

Darien, Connecticut

On another corner of the property, the HVAC and trash containers enclosed with a 3-sided perimeter fenceline. 

Wood Fence Panel #1-3 is identical to the above #1-1. Both at 48″ ht, but showing the upper pickets two inches shorter (6″ ).

The height of the pickets, although normally falling within a proportionate ratio called the Golden Rectangle, are also created to the discretion of our patrons.

Santa Rosa, CA

Wood Garden Fence Panels #1 in Sonoma County, California–Set back from the walk as an allowance for the landscape to establish its place. Shown with Gate #7 Also showing how to create a radius to the fence-line by simply laying out the radius and setting the posts to that circumference, while the panels themselves remain square.

Santa Rosa, CA

And just how long does a Prowell fence last? Barring the abrupt impact of a hard collision, the panels will last interminably.

Below, the above fence visited 17 years after the original installation. Our homeowners have moved on and the Cabot Semi-Transparent finish they applied themselves has long worn away, and yet the fence itself, weathered to a silvery grey, is a mere toddler in it’s expected lifespan.

* To read more about the expected lifespan of your fence, Click Here

No Open Slots
San Diego, CA

Prowell’s Garden Fence Panel on Coronado Island, California.
WoodRX “Natural” finish.

Shown with gate style #5

San Diego, CA

Shown with a 3rd-party arbor. The column was built to house a copper insert provided by the homeowners.

Boulder, Colorado

Radius Garden Fencing

This Colorado property is complimented by a strategic placement of Prowell’s wood fence Panels. The first two panels are designed with only a few token pickets to meet visibility codes. The back panels are laminated to a specified radius and better illustrated below.

Radius Panel price: Base + 60%

Boulder, Colorado

Wood Fence Panels on a sloping landscape can be dealt with by stepping each Fence Panel, or every other panel, depending on the degree of slope.

If the slope is dramatic enough, the bottom rail only runs parallel to the grade and the rest of the panel is square and level. if the slope is more of a hillside than a slope, the panels are created as as parallelograms, with all horizontal rails following the slope of the grade.

For more information on Sloping Grade.

Boulder, Colorado

The double Entry Wood Garden Gates are 2-1/4″ thickness. Gate Style #7 Price: Base + 8% (per gate).

Sonoma County, CA

Fence Panel #1-9 adorning the home of Prowell’s lawyer. In today’s business environment, even old world woodworkers need a can-do, no-nonsense attorney (who happens to be a woodworking hobbyist) in the endless struggle against knock-offs and intellectual rights. On any given day there are a dozen web sites with multiple images copied and pasted and presented as the work of less-than-ethical businesses.

In this example, we have increased the length of the upper picket area to better expose the surrounding landscape, while offering an appropriate privacy for the backyard.

A Sansin solid-body finish applied by the homeowner 4 weeks after the installation, allowing the cedar plenty of time to breath for the first time in the open climate prior to applying any paint or solid style finishes.

Shown with Gate style #7.

Lafeyette, CA

Wooden Fence Panels #1-6, at 72″ Height. WoodRX ‘Chestnut’. Lafayette,CA, east of the Oakland hills, was the second commission for our patrons who also solicited another 87 panels and multiple gates for their winter home in Olympic Village (Tahoe’s Palisade’s Ski Resort)

Burbank Hills, CA

A charming entry in Los Angeles. A common usage shown concealing the utility meters and trash containers

Shown with Gate style #7.

There are no open slots in #1-8
Tiburon, CA

Just a pleasant entry, with the Garden Fence Panel #1-8 in Marin County, CA, providing a little front yard privacy without sacrificing aesthetics.

Shown with gate style #7.

No open slots
Wynne, AK

Custom Wood Fence Panels #1-10 along Arkansas’ Mississippi Delta. With Garden Gate #7 utilized as a trash and utility meter enclosure.

Commissioned by a couple who farm 4,800 acres. As a farming enthusiast raised on an Illinois farm, Charles found this fascinating. Some of the richest, most fertile soil on earth is located along the Delta. In return for a few bottles of Sonoma County wine, they were kind enough to talk farming and crop rotation and harvest schedules, laced with repeated invitations for a visit. Reminiscent of the southern social graces of Charles’ upbringing.

Wynne, AK

With the new landscaped entry, the meters, hose, air conditioner, and water vent are as visible as an exposed closet. Oh, and unlike Charles’ boyhood Illinois farm, this one is accompanied by tennis courts.

Wynne, AK

The residence, with the new fence partially visible on the right. A farmhouse at the center of 4,800 acres is not always how we imagine life on the farm.