Stone benches can be quiet, meditative places in your garden or a spot for neighbors to stop and rest along your street. Benches can be stand alone features or can be incorporated into a wall or other design. Below you’ll find a handful of benches we have built. We don’t follow a particular formula for creating a sitting area; the site and the stone guide us. That said, we prefer big stones; they are more inviting to sit on and create a compelling focal point in the overall project design. All of the benches below were built dry, meaning no mortar was used at all.

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This bench provides a quiet resting place along a trail in Pilot Mountain State Park. Stainless steel pins and epoxy ensure the bench stone doesn’t move.

The focal point of a stone patio outside an Asheville home, this bench sits on top of a double-sided dry stacked wall. The front of the bench cantilevers over the wall six inches across it’s width, creating an interesting shadow detail and allowing for more leg room.

This stone love-seat is tucked at the end of a long retaining wall overlooking a garden.

A long bench overlooks a stone patio and a finely landscaped yard in the Ramble development in Asheville, North Carolina. This project was part of the Handmade House at the Ramble, a collaboration between Biltmore Farms Homes and Handmade in America to connect fine hand crafts and commercial builders.

The bench stone weighs about a ton and was moved into position by three skinny people using only hand tools. It stands as a main feature of a drystone retaining wall in a bustling Asheville neighborhood.