91-year-old Jamesburg man crafts hundreds of birdhouses 'to make people happy'

On a typical day, you can find James Sodano in the basement of his Jamesburg home in a plume of sawdust and cigar smoke.

It's his refuge − filled with tools, paint, pieces of wood and hardware strewn about higgledy-piggledy. His daughters attempt to tidy it weekly, corralling the tools to the proper baskets. But in just a few days, the workshop's rooms are back to Sodano's working order.

"He's always down there," said daughter Linda Fennessy. "Climbing over things to get what he needs. There's a saw in every room. As he uses the tools, they end up flowing around the basement again."

Sodano likes to keep busy. Retired for nearly 30 years, he does not sit around. There's been little relaxing in his golden years. On day one of retirement, the former teacher took to a habit of completing word search and sudoku puzzles and teaching himself woodworking.

Birdhouses have become the staple for the 91-year-old craftsman.

"I just love to work with my hands," he said. "Gotta keep moving."

Before his retirement, Sodano had never made a birdhouse − or much of anything, in fact. But he was always a go-getter, Fennessy said.

"He was always like this even before he retired," said Fennessy, who has a twin sister and older brother. "He was always like a go-getter kind of person. Now, it's like he's on a mission."

"I really don't do it for the money," Sodano said. "I do it because it makes people happy. They make people happy."

A teacher for 35 years, Sodano taught grades 5-8 in Matawan. He and his wife Catherine, who died in 2019, moved to the borough from Woodbridge about 28 years ago, just after he retired.

Not intended to become a side business, the birdhouses were a way for Sodano to stay busy and make people happy. But he made a lot of them. To date, he has sold more than 300 birdhouses. Lately, the style he favors − and what is most requested − are the log cabin birdhouses.

Prior to 2019, he tended to make birdhouses that looked like churches or schoolhouses. The log cabin is a design of his own creation that "just came to me one day." It takes about a day and a half to make a log cabin birdhouse.

"It takes him a long time to cut every log," Fennessy said. "There are probably 36 logs on each one and he has to taper them to the peak. There are hooks and hearts. It's very labor intensive."

Not that he is a "tree hugger," but Sodano also tries to use a lot of recycled wood and not waste any of the materials. He comes from a generation that "does not like to waste," Fennessy said.

The birdhouses also always get bird inhabitants.

"So many tell us that they get birds living in them," she said. "We always do."

Sodano is a first-generation American. His parents came from Italy and his oldest sister was born there. He and his two other sisters were born in Newark.

"He was the youngest by about 10 years," Fennessy said. "He was very spoiled. I don't think his feet touched the ground until he was about 5 years old."

And all the Sodano siblings lived into their 90s, with one sister passing away in September at age 100. Fennessy swears it is the Mediterranean diet the family follows that keeps them so long-lived. Every day, he eats a dish of tomato, olive oil and salt − that could be the key, she said.

"He loves it. He has to have that with his meal," Fennessy said.

Her parents moved to the Iselin section of Woodbridge when they married in 1960 and Fennessy remembers growing up in a two-family home with her grandparents.

Fenessy describes her dad as a very "matter of fact old school" type of man and the "best father ever." Physically, he's only gotten a little slower in his movements, but "he's sharp as a tack" − still doing long division in his head and driving.

"He doesn't cook though," she said. "But he never did cook, so my sister and I do the cooking."

To purchase a birdhouse for $25, contact Fennessy on Facebook. She often posts on Jamesburg, Spotswood and East Brunswick pages.

email: cmakin@gannettnj.com

Cheryl Makin is an award-winning features and education reporter for MyCentralJersey.com, part of the USA Today Network. Contact: Cmakin@gannettnj.com or @CherylMakin. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ man, 91, makes hundreds of birdhouses 'to make people happy'