West Valley City » The ornate barrooms built by craftsmen in a small Salt Lake City cabinet shop are long gone, but one early-1900s project designed by German immigrant Kaspar Fetzer has come to be widely recognized.

The carved wings on the Mormon Tabernacle organ are among the projects built by Fetzer, a Mormon convert who founded Salt Lake Cabinet and Fixture Co. His sons and grandsons expanded the company, building paneling and other interior work for arts centers, hotels and libraries throughout the nation.

Fast-forward to today and the renamed Fetzer Architectural Woodwork is celebrating 100 years of business by supporting environmentally friendly projects, such as installing wind turbines and planting 1,000 trees in Salt Lake Valley.

"We are passionate about wood," said Fetzer's grandson and company Vice President Paul Fetzer, 66. "When it comes to major building materials, trees are truly the only renewable resource."

The firm, one of the nation's oldest woodworking businesses, traces its roots to 1905, when the 25-year-old Kaspar Fetzer came to Salt Lake City with just $30 in his pocket. His first job was digging ditches for a gas company and doing survey work for the old Oregon Short Line Railroad, the family story goes.

Within four years of his arrival, Fetzer co-founded the cabinet shop and when work slackened, he bought out his partners and cut overhead by hauling lumber on his bicycle. Among his steady customers were ecclesiastical leaders and tavern owners, who wanted church pews or freestanding bars and rich, ornate paneling.

Business was so good that by 1923, Fetzer moved from Richards Street to a larger plant at 1436 S. West Temple, where the firm remained until 2005, when it moved to West Valley City. During World War II, the shop made ammunition boxes, airplane propellers and toboggans. Fetzer remained true to his roots and his adopted church when he visited German prisoners of war incarcerated at Fort Douglas in 1944. Despite a bit of Bavaria that lingered in his accent, he talked his way past Army guards to proselytize prisoners in their native tongue.

The company came full circle in the 1990s when Fetzer's descendants built the intricate woodwork that encases the organ pipes at the LDS Conference Center.

Paul Fetzer, who designed the casings, was well-acquainted with the work of his grandfather and his grandfather's brother, John Fetzer, an architect, on the old Tabernacle in 1915. A framed architectural drawing of the Tabernacle the brothers probably used hangs near his office.

The 1990s design team, however, was dealing with a hall and organ many times larger than the Tabernacle. Unlike the founder's project, the organ was not assembled, leaving the team without the organ's dimensions or even the number of front display pipes (the figure was 170, compared with 20 in the Tabernacle).

Fetzer also struggled with acoustic problems for the cavernous hall, which is a full city block wide and half as deep. Organ casings reflect sound, and with microphones and broadcast equipment, timing had to be precise so that the natural and amplified sounds become synchronized when they reached the back of the hall.

"It was a profound parallel to our past," said Fetzer of his work. "But most of my feelings at the time centered on pure desperation to get the project done on time."

Like his father, also named John, John Fetzer always had a place in the firm, but promotions didn't come easy. He was raised in a home within a few yards of the West Temple plant and began working there as a boy. He hauled water for the workers and as he rose in the company, his paycheck was identical to other craftsmen. Sons Paul and Wallace, the latter now company president and CEO, started out by pulling weeds and mowing lawns on the plant property.

Although the Fetzers are known for their work on the 1.4 million-square-foot Conference Center and the hall's pulpit, made from a black walnut tree cut from the backyard of late church President Gordon B. Hinckley, most of their work is performed out of state. Their projects include the Performing Arts Center of Greater Miami, with its three concert halls and symphony center, and libraries in Salt Lake City and San Francisco and at the University of Miami and University of California, Berkeley. The firm also does interior work on hotels, condominiums, mansions and luxury yachts.

When it comes to wood, the Fetzers practice what they preach. Architects, builders and homeowners should consider using wood because of its beauty and renewability, said Wallace Fetzer, 54. For instance, a single cherry tree, 24 feet, 30 inches in diameter, was used to veneer the entire rostrum at the LDS Conference Center -- along with the giant organ casing.

To ensure that wood Fetzer purchases does not come from depleted forests, the company is a member of the Tropical Forest Foundation that instructs logging companies on sustainable forestry. The firm also has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as a manufacturer of products that meet sustainable requirements.

Fetzer's commitment to one of the world's most environmentally friendly building materials is reflected in 15-inch letters across its plant's exterior, spelling out architect Frank Lloyd Wright's "Wood is a friend of mine" quote:

"The best friend on earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the great resources of the earth. It is a beautiful material, friendly to man; the supreme material for his dwelling purposes. If a man is going to live, he should live with wood."

dawn@sltrib.com