The house and workshop of Stan Ioan Pătraș — the woodcarver who began the Merry Cemetery tradition in 1935 — stands just beside the cemetery and is open as a small museum. Inside you can see his tools, his workbench, and several unfinished crosses that give a clear sense of the process: oak is carved in relief, then painted with natural pigments in the characteristic Săpânța blue.
Pătraș lived and worked here until his death in 1977. His own grave is in the cemetery, its cross carved by his apprentice Dumitru Pop Tincu. The workshop is a modest place — a craftsman's home, not a grand institution — and all the more interesting for it.
Small admission fee. Often combined with a visit to the cemetery.