Steve Wigfield earned an architecture degree from UC Berkeley and worked for architecture firms in California for many years before moving into high end residential woodwork in 1972. Initially he worked from his home workshop in Inverness.
1982-1985 I worked at Skywalker Ranch in the mill shop as a Lead Millman. The mill shop was large with 20+ employees. It was a very interesting and stimulating place to work. There were talented employees with varied backgrounds in woodworking, I learned a great deal from all of them. Including project management, laying out and grinding router bits and shaper knives, milling large timbers into molding stock, operating a shaper, producing radius millwork of all shapes and sizes, and layout and production of radius stair parts.
In 1985 construction was winding down on the ranch and layoffs began.
~1985-2014 Tom Winfree and I started Wigfield & Winfree Woodworking after we were laid-off. In 1986 we moved the business to 660 Lakeville Street in Petaluma. Tom left the business in 1987 and I changed the name to Wigfield Working, Inc. I continued to operate it until mid 2014 when I retired and closed the business.
In the beginning, Tom & I took on every type of work that came our way, but we soon realized we needed to focus the business on a few types of woodworking. After Tom left, I narrowed the business’ scope of work to custom doors, windows and radius millwork. The business’ reputation grew over the years and we worked on numerous large projects through out the north bay and San Francisco peninsula.
Here are a few Skywalker Main House project photos, Tom ran the spiral stair and I ran the main stair. All of the redwood in the photos came from old highway bridge beams that were 6” x 16” x 20’.
