Happy Memorial Day from Western Timber Frame — a Highland, Utah Pergola Project
Happy Memorial Day from all of us at Western Timber Frame. We hope today finds you somewhere good around a table, near people you love, with nowhere you need to be in a hurry.
Memorial Day has been a federal holiday since 1971, but its roots go back to the years just after the Civil War, when communities gathered to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers. They called it Decoration Day. What started as an act of remembrance became, over the decades, something broader — a day that marks both gratitude for sacrifice and the unofficial start of summer. It is one of the few holidays that carries both weight and warmth at the same time.
According to AAA, roughly 45 million Americans travel over Memorial Day weekend. Nearly two out of three fire up the grill. It is the weekend that officially pulls families back outside — onto patios, into backyards, around tables that haven’t seen a full crowd since last fall. For most of us, the backyard is where it starts.
Which makes it a fair question: when everyone you care about shows up and heads for the backyard, is your backyard ready for them?
One family in Highland, Utah made sure theirs was. Here is what they built.
What Went Up in Highland
Twin attached pergolas from the 8000 Series, built on full 8×8 posts and mounted directly to the back of the house in a stepped roof configuration — one section sitting higher than the other, following the roofline and adding depth to what could have been a flat plane of timber. The whole structure is finished in Rich Cordoba, a warm brown stain that shipped pre-applied with the kit. Champion Step beam end profiles give the rafter tails a clean, deliberate cut. Full arched knee braces sweep between posts and beams, and the timber deck railing posts tie the pergola visually to the black aluminum railing and composite deck below.
The 8×8 posts give the structure real visual weight — these are not decorative four-by-fours bolted to a deck. At roughly eight feet from deck to the underside of the main beam, the proportions feel open and generous without dwarfing the roofline behind it. The stepped configuration lets the two pergola sections sit at different heights, which breaks up the mass and keeps the structure from reading as one flat canopy. The result is a pergola that looks like it has always been part of the house — which is the quiet goal of every attached build done right.
How Fast This Came Together
What surprises most people about a project like this is the timeline. Western Timber Frame kits ship with pre-cut joinery — every beam, rafter, and connection point is precision-milled in the shop before the kit ever leaves Payson, Utah. That means on-site install is assembly, not construction. Most kits go up in an afternoon to a day. Not days. Not weeks. An afternoon. So if you are looking at your own backyard this Memorial Day and wondering what it could become by next summer — or sooner — the timeline is more forgiving than you probably assume.
Why an Attached Pergola Works Here
An attached pergola borrows one wall from the house, which does two things at once. It creates a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor — step through the sliding door and you are already under cover. And it keeps the structure visually anchored, so the pergola reads as part of the home rather than something parked in the yard.
In Highland, where lots tend to be generous but the Wasatch afternoon sun is direct, an attached pergola over a raised deck is one of the most practical moves a homeowner can make. You get shade where you need it, airflow a solid roof would block, and a footprint that doesn’t eat into the kids’ lawn space.
What Ships in a Western Timber Frame Kit
Every kit includes the pre-cut heavy timbers, all structural hardware, a pre-stained finish (no separate stain bill), engineering and stamped drawings where required, a full assembly guide with photos, and phone support during install. Site prep, footings, permits, and install labor are on the homeowner — but the structure itself arrives ready to assemble.
Western Timber Frame has delivered more than 7,000 structures to all 50 states. Every kit uses The Dovetail Difference — a patented connection system (US Patent No. 9,797,149 B2) invented by founder Hyrum Thompson that locks joints tight without visible hardware. It is the reason these pergolas look clean and hold up for decades.
Highland, Utah: Built for Outdoor Living
Highland sits at the base of the Wasatch Range in Utah County, with mountain views, four real seasons, and a community that genuinely uses its backyards. Between youth sports, neighborhood barbecues, and family dinners that stretch past sunset, outdoor space here is not decorative — it is functional square footage.
A timber frame pergola fits this context because it adds usable shade without closing off the view or the breeze. And because Western Timber Frame is based in Payson — just 40 minutes south — Highland homeowners are practically neighbors.
Enjoy the Weekend — and the Backyard
This Highland family will spend this Memorial Day under heavy timber, on a deck that did not exist a few months ago. The grill will be going. The kids will be on the lawn. And nobody will be standing in the sun wondering where to sit.
From our family to yours — we hope your Memorial Day is full of the people who matter most. And if at some point this weekend you look around the backyard and start imagining what it could be, we would love that conversation.
Western Timber Frame builds free design consultations around your actual space and actual life — not a catalog. Call 877-870-8755 or start at westerntimberframe.com. Happy Memorial Day.
