Driftwood Builders Roofing and ABC Home & Commercial Come Together for The Contemporary Austin
Laguna Gloria is one of those places that makes Austin feel like Austin: oak-shaded grounds, sculpture outdoors and room to slow down. Recently, two established local businesses, Driftwood Builders Roofing and ABC Home & Commercial Services, came together to help care for it.
The tangible project was a gazebo on the museum's grounds whose wood roof had badly deteriorated. ABC introduced Driftwood to The Contemporary Austin and brought our team in for the roofing portion, and we helped restore the gazebo with a new cedar roof that suits the structure and the setting around it.
It is a small structure, but supporting an Austin arts institution and a space so many people enjoy is exactly the kind of work we are proud to be part of.
Supporting an Austin Arts Institution
The Contemporary Austin has two locations: the Jones Center on Congress Avenue and Laguna Gloria in West Austin. The museum describes Laguna Gloria as a fourteen-acre art-in-nature site. It includes the landmark Driscoll Villa and the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park, and it began as the lakeside 1916 estate of Clara Driscoll, who donated it in 1943.
Cultural institutions like this give a city much of its character. Supporting them does not always take a grand gesture. Sometimes it looks like local companies showing up to take care of one piece of a place that visitors love.
Two Local Businesses, One Shared Goal
ABC Home & Commercial Services, the Austin-based home and commercial services company, made the introduction to The Contemporary Austin and brought Driftwood in for the roofing portion of the project. Our part was the roof itself.
That kind of collaboration is one of the best things about doing business in Austin. When established local companies know and trust each other's work, they can bring the right expertise to a community need quickly. We are grateful to ABC for thinking of us and for the trust that comes with an introduction like that.
The Gazebo Roof: What We Found
When our team got up on the roof, it was clear that it needed more than a patch. Weather and shade had taken a heavy toll on the wood roofing, and very little of it was still doing its job.
- Weathered and missing wood. Much of the remaining wood roofing was split, curled and worn thin, and many pieces were gone entirely.
- Exposed underlayment. Large areas of the dark layer beneath the wood were uncovered, torn and peeling away.
- Openings in the roof. In several spots you could see straight through to the framing below.
- Organic growth. Moss and other growth covered much of the wood that was left.
A wood roof under a heavy tree canopy tends to stay damp longer and collect leaves and debris, and both speed up this kind of breakdown. On a structure people walk under and gather around, a roof in this condition also takes away from the setting it is supposed to complement.
The New Cedar Roof
Cedar was a natural fit for this structure. Our crew replaced the deteriorated wood roofing with new cedar, worked course by course around the gazebo up to the finial. It suits the gazebo's round form and its wooded surroundings, and laid in tight, even courses it gives the roof a clean, traditional look that matches the character of the property.
New cedar starts out with the warm, reddish tone you can see in these photos and gradually weathers to a softer silver-gray over time, which tends to blend well into a shaded, natural setting like this one.
Caring for a Special Community Space
Places like Laguna Gloria are part of what makes Austin special, and caring for them helps preserve the character of the community. We are proud to have helped care for this one, grateful to ABC Home & Commercial for bringing us in, and thankful to The Contemporary Austin for the opportunity to support its work.
This project is now part of our Community Giveback page, alongside other ways our team has worked to support neighbors across Austin.
Founded in 2005, Driftwood Builders Roofing is a locally owned Central Texas exterior contractor. Learn more about our team.
