- December 12, 2025
Jon Day, James Dillon, Bobby Bryant, Robert Moore, John Carleton, Andrew Lenarcic, Jonathan Reed, Anthony Fricke, Derek DeSimone, Brett Matter and Derick Dessoye. Photo by Tanya Russo
The new Port Orange conference table is made from historical oak trees. Photo by Tanya Russo
City workers line up to lift the 900-pound table onto electric dollies that raise and lower to allow the base to be fit. Photo by Tanya Russo
Priscilla Haller Sparks and Mark Pierson, from the Port Orange Historical Museum, watch the assembly process. Photo by Tanya Russo
The City of Port Orange is identified on the base for the table. Photo by Tanya Russo
The City logo is carved into the conference table. Photo by Tanya Russo
Anthony Fricke, John Carleton, Jon Day and Derek DeSimone secure the trestle that will go under the table to support it. Photo by Tanya Russo
How many city workers does it take to assemble a table? If the table is made from local historical oak trees, the answer is 12.
It took ten city workers, plus Jon Day and John Carleton, creators of the project and members of the Volusia County Wood Carvers Club, to assemble the 10-foot-long, 900-pound work of art in the conference room at the Port Orange City Hall on Wednesday, July 17. John Fawcett, the third creator of the conference table, was absent due to illness. The table was made from oak trees removed back in April 5, 2017 from the former Booth’s Bowery property bought by Cumberland Farms,
The table was the last, and biggest, of all three of the creations made by Carleton, Day and Fawcett. Day told City Manager Jake Johansson that the city got the nicest of all the tables.
“You got the city logo, you got the trestle with the City of Port Orange on both sides,” Carleton said. “In 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, nobody’s going to take it away and put it in their house and say, ’This is mine.’”
Carleton estimated it took 402 man hours of work to make the 10-foot by 5-feet wide table.
“Gentlemen, I am humbled,” Johansson said. “It is beautiful.”
