Here’s a good cocktail-party question for you – What are the seats at Red Rocks made of? Ipe. What??? Read on for the back-story.

DeckTec spoke with Tad Bowman, venue director for Red Rocks as well as the Denver Coliseum, to get our valued customers the insider Red Rocks scoop.

According to Bowman, the original Red Rocks benches were made from none other than top of the line old-growth clear heart Redwood. Those “hearty” benches were installed when the amphitheater was being built back in the late 1930s and lasted more than half a century before being creatively re-purposed, as you’ll soon see.

“The Redwood benches endured the full brunt of rain, snow, and mile high sun. They also at one point had the seat numbers carved into the top. Because of changes in the seating configuration at Red Rocks there was an effort to cover up the tops of those benches with the dark, heavy preservative creosote, because the seat numbers had changed.

“Eventually the creosote started wearing off, exposing the old seat numbers. The top seats needed to be changed when the Visitor Center was built at the top. A year or two later we started looking to replace the rest of the worn-out benches. Clear heart old-growth Redwood was no longer available as far as we know in the dimensions that we needed,” Bowman said.

Red Rocks staff considered different options, such as milling the benches down, but that would have changed the dimensions. After conducting extensive research, the project architect found a suitable replacement hardwood, and the venue settled on the dense, oil-rich Ipe, also known as Brazilian walnut, considered to be the longest-lasting matured wood.

“Ipe is great. It’s a sustainable forest product, there’s a designation for that. Ipe is dense, it’s hard, it’s heavy and you don’t have to treat it. It will just naturally weather to the silvery grey that we have up there now. It lasts for a long time and gives a similar look to the amphitheater as the old Redwood,” Bowman said.

Of course, this being sustainability-minded Colorado –

“We knew we didn’t just want to throw away the old lumber. We worked with the city purchasing department that deals with surplus materials and they did an online bid. We were able to sell some of the old material, including some to an artisan who makes picture frames out of recycled wood. Then we figured out we could piece together some of the lumber into souvenir benches, which were sold at the Red Rocks “Trading Post” shop,” Bowman said.

Today these short, clear Redwood benches have seat numbers and adorn gardens and yards throughout the region.

Three of the souvenir benches are on display at the Trading Post to the left of the main room, enshrined as part of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame there.

Next time you enjoy a concert at Red Rocks be sure to show off your “insider” knowledge with your friends and family!