Arthur Houghton Jr.; Headed Steuben Glass

Arthur Houghton Jr., the former president of Steuben Glass who once smashed 20,000 items in order to force massive improvement in the company’s product design, has died after a brief illness. He was 83.

Houghton, who had homes in Boca Grande, Fla., and Queenstown, Md., died Tuesday in Venice Hospital near his Florida home.

The great-grandson of Corning Glass Works founder Amory Houghton, he became president of Steuben Glass, the company’s crystal subsidiary, in 1933.

In 40 years under his direction, Steuben lived up to the motto that Houghton’s smashing spree prompted: “From ashcan to museum in half a generation.”

Steuben, named for the New York county in which Corning is located and taken over by the Corning company in 1918, had built its reputation on elaborate designs in colored glass.

But Houghton, who had a strong interest in art and later served as chairman of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Philharmonic, set out to change all that.

Deciding Steuben should concentrate solely on museum quality designs in flawless, clear lead crystal, the new company president armed himself and a colleague with lead pipes one Sunday morning in 1933 and smashed everything in Steuben’s Corning, N.Y., warehouse.

Houghton also radically changed the company’s sales policy, switching from selling crystal in stores across the country to a handful of tony establishments like Gump’s in San Francisco and Bullock’s Wilshire in Los Angeles. In 1934, he built the showcase store on New York’s 5th Avenue that still looks more like a museum than a sales showroom.

Pricey pieces wrought by Houghton’s demands for quality design and material have included a large bowl called the Crusaders, which President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan selected as a wedding gift for Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and the delicate crystal apple that former New York Mayor Ed Koch traditionally presented as a thank-you gift from the city nicknamed “the Big Apple.”

The first three of Houghton’s four marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his fourth wife, Nina, three children from previous marriages, and nine grandchildren.