New Branch of Furniture Design
Barry Gregson surveys the cache of drying wood that fills his studio and large back yard and smiles with satisfaction. Massive trunks, slender branches and twigs of butternut, birch, maple, ash, cherry, apple and other varieties, each with its distinct color and texture, await his artful hands.
Gregson is a furniture maker who searches for miles through the Adirondack Mountains’ woods (about 150 miles north of New York City, near the Vermont border), surrounding his turn-of-the-century, log-and-stone house.
Each piece in the collection has a particularly appealing form, the right combination of twists and knots and the right character to be used for Gregson’s work: one-of-a-kind chairs, settees, bed frames, cabinets and other pieces of furniture in the rustic Adirondack style.
Even though Gregson has occasionally sent for burled redwood from Northern California and exotic woods from around the globe, most of the wood he uses is local, naturally felled by storms or cut down by farmers clearing their lands.
Local citizens keep an active neighborhood watch for tree trunks, logs and branches. Gregson collects the wood and takes it to his studio with the help of local road crews.
“I know right away when I see a piece of wood whether or not it will work as furniture,” Gregson says. “Once I’ve decided to work a tree trunk or branches, I study them for a while and get to know their nature and their particular proportions and shapes.
“It’s almost as though the wood informs me how it wants to be used. But meeting the demands of the wood and respecting its true potential is always challenging. You have to respect the beauty of a knot in the wood, but you cannot place it where it will interfere with the comfort of a chair.”
In the center of Gregson’s studio stands a five-foot maple log that was split by lightening. The interior of the larger half is being hollowed and will be fitted with shelves to make a curio cabinet. When finished it will sell for about $900.
Nearby, several settees ($950 to $3,500) are being made from branches and slats held together with handmade wooden pegs. A similarly fashioned rocker, made of yellow birch with gold-colored bark intact, has a price tag of $700.
Gregson’s living room is filled with rocking chairs, dining tables and “wishbone” chairs (with forked branches used to form the backs), settees, side tables, stools and bed frames. Most unusual is a computer desk ($3,000) made of apple, ash and maple branches that have been boiled in linseed oil to give them a satiny finish.
These pieces will eventually go on display in the gallery Gregson and his wife, Darlene, run in a converted turn-of-the-century blacksmith’s shop. Their Adirondack Rustic Gallery on Main Street, Scroon Lake, (518) 532-7296, is open from May 25 to Oct. 15.
Gregson, who became a woodworker after years as a stone mason, is one of about two dozen contemporary artisans who craft furniture in the Adirondack style.
They are heirs to a tradition that originated in about 1900 when wealthy businessmen and fashionable socialites built rustic-style summer retreats--lavish estates known as “great camps”--in Upstate New York’s woodlands. Getting there from New York City takes about 2 1/2 hours by train and 4 1/2 hours by car.
Furniture making started in the Adirondacks because during the area’s hard winters, the caretakers, guides and other year-round “great camp” employees would while away the hours fashioning furniture out of local timber.
At first they produced rough-looking, clumsy pieces--boughs and branches nailed or lashed together--that were used as their own temporary furnishings. But as their workmanship and style evolved, they began creating highly desirable works.
These pieces, either incorporated into the decor of the estates or sold to tourists during the summer season, brought up to $100--a substantial amount in those days--and are now expensive collectibles.
Another branch of Adirondack-style furniture was developed simultaneously. This was a supply of deck and lawn chairs and settees to the area’s increasingly popular vacation resorts. Much more utilitarian, these were the simple, short-legged and slightly reclining seats with armrests wide enough to support drinks. They were made of wooden slats and sold for about $6 each. Today the style is trendy again, but knockoffs cost cost about $80 to $100 per chair.
Antique originals of both the twig and slated-wood types of Adirondack furniture can be seen in the superb collection of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. The highlight: Ernest Stowe’s classic rustic white-birch furniture.
A good selection of contemporary Adirondack rustic furniture can be seen in the area’s best resorts, including the historic Sagamore at Bolton Landing, where branch and twig headboards and chairs are used to decorate guest rooms, and the familiar Adirondack lawn chairs are scattered over grounds and on terraces.
In fact, the Sagamore, (800) 358-3585, is dedicated to preserving area traditions and offers guests introductions to local furniture makers; the hotel will also arrange visits to workshops throughout the Adirondacks.
Gregson’s Adirondack Rustic Gallery also shows and sells pieces by several artisans. Jean Armstrong (P.O. Box 607, Tupper Lake, N.Y. 12986, 518-359-9983), for example, encases beveled glass mirrors (from $250) in frames fashioned of white and yellow birch and embellished with birch twigs and bark. Armstrong also makes lamps, headboards and tables.
Dennis Smith (RFD No. 3, Malone, N.Y. 12953, no phone) often embellishes his oak or maple chests and chairs with floral appliques, with leaves and petals carved from beech, birch, ironwood or maple. Smith’s coffee tables feature large slabs of one kind of wood supported by branches of other kinds of wood. Prices start at about $300.
For those who cannot afford the larger pieces, Earl Hay makes rustic miniatures, with dollhouse-size settees, tables and chairs made of twigs and bark selling for about $20 each.
Armstrong, Smith and Gregson pieces are also available through the Adirondack North Country Craft Center, 93 Saranac Ave., Lake Placid, N.Y. 12946, (518) 523-2062, open July through September. The center is a common showroom for about 150 local artisans--not all of them furniture makers--and provides brochures listing addresses and describing individual work.
