Historic Sawdust Festival has a rich history and a Beautiful New Roof

The Sawdust Art Festival has a special place in the heart of California. Since 1966 Sawdust has been dedicated to educating the public and promoting the art created in Laguna Beach, California. Sawdust acts as a support system for artists and gives outsiders the opportunity to view and discuss the creative ingenious in Southern California.

Sawdust General Manager Tom Klingenmeier was the decision maker who chose to re-roof Sawdust with CeDUR Shakes. His primary goal was to maintain the iconic wood shake look with a durable material.

As Tom stated, "Laguna Beach is unique, you must appear before the planning commission in order to approve building materials, they can be a little rough with some of the demands they put on builders in the community". Tom wanted to improve the roofs aesthetic appeal and performance but most importantly the roofing material had to meet the demands and appease the planning commission.

Luke Roofing installs beautiful new CeDUR Synthetic Roof at Sawdust Festival

The roofer on the project was Luke Roofing based out of Orange County. Tom had known Gary Luke for 12 years prior because Luke Roofing has done quality work in the surrounding community for quite some time. They began talking about replacing the Sawdust roof back in 2010, they wanted to do their due diligence and get it right. Luckily for Tom, Gary Luke knew exactly what the city would approve and referred Tom to CeDUR Shakes. 

Tom Klingenmeier presented CeDUR to the planning commission and stated, "the commission thought it fit perfectly with what he had built and what the city had approved back in the mid 1980's when they first built the structures, they said it was an iconic look and they were very much in favor of it, they approved it unanimously". When asked on his reasoning behind choosing CeDUR, Tom said "Going into our 50th anniversary we wanted to upgrade, we did some work with awnings over the windows but wanted an aesthetic upgrade to our unique roof. CeDUR had the beautiful wood look that the commission wanted from older structures and the architect James Lashley imitated when we built the facade".

Tom was very satisfied and complimentary of the work Gary Luke and his crew did installing the CeDUR Shiloh roof. Sawdust sits right on Interstate 133 in Laguna Beach and sees roughly 6 million visitors per year according to local surveyors. "It's amazing how many people noticed we put the new roof on, they do pay attention to what things look like" says General Manager Tom Klingenmeier.

We are very proud to be the roofing material of choice on such a historic and unique destination.