 Show John Leyba, The Denver Post Keenan Tompkins President, Colorado Timberframe poses with a wooden mallet July 14, 2016 on some leftover timber that was used for fabrication. The builders used mallets like this one to pound in the wooding pegs when the build took place. The Colorado company built Noah’s Ark to biblical dimensions for a Kentucky amusement park.By Danika Worthington | The Denver Post PUBLISHED: July 31, 2016 at 12:01 a.m. | UPDATED: August 15, 2016 at 2:44 p.m. Colorado Timberframe employees worked 24 hours a day, six days a week for 11 months straight, cutting wood to build the largest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world: a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark, as described in the Bible. The crew sent 180 semi-trucks filled with timber components to Williamstown, Ky., where they oversaw construction of the Ark Encounter, a sister attraction to Answers In Genesis‘ Creation Museum about an hour away. “It was an amazing honor,” said Colorado Timberframe president Keenan Tompkins. “No one has done this before.” “Except for Noah,” joked Jason Schimpf, lead installer. “And it’s been a while,” Tompkins quipped. The first phase of the Ark Encounter cost $91 million. The ark has exhibits housed inside its hull and stands 15 feet above the ground, held up by concrete buried 30 feet deep. The timber weighs 4.2 million pounds. The Ark Encounter has advertised that the ark is 510 feet long, but Colorado Timberframe said it’s actually 6 inches shy of 550 feet. John Minchillo, Associated Press Visitors pass outside the front of a replica Noah’s Ark at the Ark Encounter theme park during a media preview day, Tuesday, July 5, 2016, in Williamstown, Ky.The ark’s design is based on dimensions from the Biblical story of Noah, who was told by God to build an ark and fill it with animals so they, and his family, could survive a worldwide flood. But this ark is slightly different from the one described in the Bible, Tomkins said. “I can guarantee you it will not float.” The ark was a hefty endeavor for Colorado Timberframe’s team, which normally numbers 45 people. Crews worked around the clock at the company’s Lafayette headquarters while Schimpf oversaw the installation in Kentucky. The entire ark project took 18 months to complete. The attraction opened earlier this month. To meet the deadline, additional workers and specialists were required. Tompkins said about 1,000 people worked on the project overall, with more than 300 people working on site at one time. Schimpf, who moved his family to Kentucky and home-schooled his kids while working on the ark, said construction was on a tight but organized schedule. Once a truck came in, the crew unload it and immediately put it into production. The teams in Kentucky and Colorado were in constant communication. “We did a lot of knocking on wood,” Tompkins said, walking over to a pile of wood and tapping it. “Even now I want to do it even though it’s over.” The giant ark and its 1.2 million board feet of square timber required a lot of trees. Tompkins said the team used a lot of responsibly harvested Douglas fir from Washington, Utah and Canada. Answers in Genesis also wanted large logs to hold up parts of the boat, the largest being nearly 5 feet in diameter. To meet the specification, they found standing-dead Engelmann spruce trees in a Utah forest that were 200 years old, Tompkins said. Part of the reason Colorado Timberframe won the bid for the project was because it is one of only a few companies in North America to have a machine big enough to work with the large materials. Schimpf said he read about the ark in the paper about 2 1/2 years ago and told Tompkins that they couldn’t miss this opportunity. Building the ark was hard work, but Tompkins and Schimpf said the complicated part was maintaining their regular business. The company did about 55 other projects last year. The company mainly does high-end residential work and only a few commercial projects. Tomkins and Schimpf said they hope the ark has raised Colorado Timberframe’s profile, so it can do more commercial projects. A spokeswoman with Colorado Timberframe said the company has already received more calls since the project and some clients like to brag to friends that their house was built by the same people who built the ark. “If we can do the ark, we can do anything,” Schimpf said. “We knew we could do anything, we just proved it.” UPDATED This story was updated at 1:22 p.m. Aug. 1, 2016, to clarify that Colorado Timberframe did about 55 projects in addition to the Ark Encounter last year. John Leyba, The Denver Post Leftover lumber at the Colorado Timberframe lumber yard July 14, 2016 where the company built a replica of Noah’s Ark.
Danika Worthington | Digital Strategist — The Denver PostDanika Worthington is a digital strategist for The Know and The KNow Outdoors, a position she has held since 2018. She started at The Denver Post as a breaking and general assignment reporter in 2016. Follow Danika Worthington @Dani_Worth Join the ConversationWe invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. As of June 15, 2022, comments on DenverPost.com are powered by Viafoura, and you may need to log in again to begin commenting. Read more about our new commenting system here. If you need help or are having issues with your commenting account, please email us at [email protected]. Sign up for Newsletters and Alerts Sign UpFollow Us
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What kind of wood was used to build the Ark Encounter?
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