Pavilion breaks ground

The Berry special events building at Oak Hill will seat 300 guests.

Berry College officials were beaming with pride Saturday as they broke ground on a new special events pavilion between Oak Hill and the Martha Berry Museum.

Berry President Stephen Briggs told a large crowd of alumni and friends of Berry that he felt certain that Martha Berry herself would love the new pavilion. Many members of the extended Berry family were on hand for the groundbreaking.

The new pavilion is being constructed to the east of the museum, in a grassy area.

When the 300-seat pavilion is erected later this year, it will take a lot of pressure off both Oak Hill — the home of the college’s founder — and the museum, according to museum director Tim Brown.

“We went through a lot of iterations of where it was going to be situated,” he said.

“Oak Hill has hosted countless functions in support of the schools and the Rome and Floyd County community as well. There have been alumni events, receptions for the governor,” Briggs said. “Then there have been weddings, many, many, many weddings.”

Fred Tharpe, chairman of the board of trustees’ master planning committee, said it’s important that the new pavilion fits in with the architecture of both Oak Hill and the museum.

“It can be used as an open-air pavilion or as air-conditioned space,” Tharpe said. “This will give us the ability to have a lot more events at Oak Hill.”

Mark Cochran and Audrey Burton of the Cevian Design Lab in Rome drew

Berry President Stephen Briggs tells alumni and friends Saturday that Martha Berry herself would love the new Oak Hill Pavilion. An image of the building is on the sign beside Briggs.

up plans for the building in conjunction with design ideas from Al Christopher, Berry Class of 1961. Christopher did a lot of the original wood work for the pavilion at his home in Florida.

Christopher said the building will use a lot of juniper wood.

“All of the exterior siding has been completed, the hand-hewn rustic beams that will go inside, Doug Walker / Rome News-Tribune

solid juniper, they’re finished. The cupola is about 60 percent complete, so we’re ready to go,” he said.

The new pavilion features a full catering kitchen and spacious changing rooms for wedding parties.

Brown said that, as with so many locations in Rome, parking is a bit of an issue.

“We’re close to finalizing plans for that,” he said.