It's an impressive looking home with a cupola on top, four rooms, eight windows and a tranquil white picket fence in the front. It's beautifully painted: white with green trim. It looks like something you'd see in an architect's magazine.
There's just one problem if you're thinking of checking it out on a real estate Web site. The sign on the front is the giveaway: "WHERE OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS MEET"
It's the new birdhouse in the memorial rose garden in front of the Mary Phillips Senior Center in Temecula that's earning the rave reviews. The sign is perfect, given the center's motto: "a place where friends meet."
Wayne Bershaw of Temecula spent more than 100 hours creating the 2-foot-by-2-foot birdhouse. It's easy to see why, given how elaborate it looks. It's even more impressive considering that he built it for free.
"It looks like a condo," recreation supervisor Candice Flohr said.
Bershaw isn't done yet with his good deeds at the center. A new community garden is in the works and he's planning to accessorize it with another of his birdhouse creations.
At 86, Bershaw has more experience working with wood than most of us have with life. He learned his talent in a wood-making class in high school in Idaho about 70 years ago.
Over those many years he has built lots of furniture, including a complete bedroom set. He has put together more than 100 birdhouses and lately he's also been churning out lots of butcher blocks and lazy Susans.
Bershaw proudly keeps an inventory of his wares on his digital camera. All he wants when he sells them is to cover his material costs.
The inspiration for his first birdhouse was the feathered friends who were making a mess on an overhang at his house. He built them their own place instead.
Bershaw estimated that he spends about 30 hours a week on his woodwork.
"My wife (Mary) will say it's 60," he said with an impish grin.
His work involves fine motor skills, especially crafting the tiny cedar shingles he sticks on the roofs of some birdhouses. He's constantly working with saws, though he has learned to be more careful since he partially severed a finger about 18 months ago and went to the hospital to have the dangling digit sewed back. Now he only works with saws when his wife is around.
Bershaw said his work keeps him sharp mentally. It's easy to see why, given that his bird places look like real houses and even a saloon, complete with small steps and a sign advertising its use.
Then there is the senior center condo project that has the kind of upgrades found only in a model home.
"That one got a little out of hand," he conceded.
One reason is that Bershaw cares so much about the center. He met his wife there and worked at the center for a couple years as a recreation assistant before retiring three years ago.
Retiring is a relative term for Bershaw, who spent much of his work life as western states operations manager for a home health care company.
"I've got to be doing something," he said. "You can sit around and wither away, but I'm not going to do that."
His many feathered friends can attest to that. thumbsup
I can't upload the pic of the bird house, I get an error saying the upload folder is full. Gee, I wonder why? 
