Around 20 volunteers helped construct two yurts at the Village School in Royalston to expand classroom space for the preschool program. Each yurt will accommodate around a dozen students, and older students will also have the opportunity to study in the unique classrooms. The yurts were supplied by Two Girls Farm & Yurts, a company that builds and sells yurts as primary residences and for nature-based preschools. The yurts are the largest model supplied by the company and were completed in one day.
ROYALSTON – Around 20 volunteers showed up at the Village School on Saturday to help construct two yurts, expanding classroom space for the preschool program.
Each yurt will be able to accommodate around a dozen students, and older students will also have the opportunity to study in the unique classrooms, according to preschool program director Sofie Vieira.
Construction of the yurts was overseen by Adriane Sturgeon, co-owner of Two Girls Farm & Yurts of Acworth, New Hampshire, the company that supplied the structures. Accompanied to the worksite by one of her daughters, she told the Athol Daily News that her husband, Ken Gagnon, built a yurt when he was looking for a place to live. The business’ name is a nod to the couple’s children.
“He had a hatchet and built a yurt with awesome plans from National Geographic,” she said. “He lived in it for about nine years and, of course, friends heard about and were like, ‘Can you build me one?’ So, he built one one year and a few more the next.”
According to Sturgeon, most of the yurts built by Two Girls go to customers wanting to use them as a primary residence.
“That’s our primary focus,” she explained, “people living in them – in New England. Usually, it’s people who have moved on to some land and want to start a farm, don’t want to get stuck with a mortgage, maybe. Often, people will live in a yurt while the build their traditional house.
“We live on a farm with chickens and garlic, and now we have yurts for all the outbuildings. We do between 40 and 50 yurts a year, all in New England.”
For thousands of years across central Asia, the yurt has been the primary dwelling for nomadic livestock herders, according to the Two Girls website. Designs have depended on available materials and tools, snow and wind loads, summer and winter temperatures, rainfall, and how often they need to be moved. The designs built by Two Girls draw on the present-day Mongolian yurt and the American adaptations of Bill Copperthwaite and Chuck and Laurel Cox.
Royalston Village School isn’t the first school to purchase the structures.
“We do a few schools a year,” said Sturgeon, “usually nature-based preschools. Ken has been doing this for like 20 years and I’ve been doing it for 10.”
The yurts constructed for the Village School, said Sturgeon, is the largest model they supply. Work Saturday got under way at 8 a.m. and Sturgeon said they would be completed that afternoon.
Squared Away Home Improvements of Fitchburg built the platforms for the yurts, and the overall plan was worked out by Stimson Studios of Princeton. Owners of the two businesses each have children attending the Village School.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.