No Silver Lining : A Long, Futile Search for Artisans Dooms Tableware Company

In the end, the 205-year-old sound of mallet striking metal was gone.

All they were trying to do at Porter Blanchard’s place in Calabasas was strike a deal--to hammer out some sort of arrangement that would keep a dying art alive.

Since colonial days, the tapping of the craftsman’s hammer had been the heartbeat of the Blanchard family. Silver was in their blood--and eight generations of Blanchards passed the secret of making exquisite dinnerware by hand.

The family of silversmiths started in 1788 in New England. Asa Blanchard supplied settlers in Kentucky and Virginia with flatware in the early 1800s. A hundred years later, George Blanchard created silver tea sets and table settings for Boston’s elite.

Porter Blanchard brought some of the family’s worn hammers, wooden holloware forms and knife-and-fork patterns to Los Angeles in 1923. “I’m a spoon maker,” he explained as he set up workshops in Burbank and later in Pacoima.

In time, Blanchard became silversmith to the stars. He even opened a retail store near the movie studios to cater to the likes of Cary Grant, Joan Crawford and Cecil B. DeMille. His work was known for its sturdy colonial revival style lines as well as its elegant finish.

The Calabasas silversmith shop opened in 1950, specializing in flatware. When Blanchard died in 1973, sons-in-law Lewis Wise and Allan Adler--both silversmiths--divided his assets. Wise took over Porter Blanchard Silversmiths, only to have to sell it three years later when his health began declining.

Mel Horsmann and daughter Rae Johnson kept Wise on as master silversmith after purchasing the company. Other aging workers stayed too.

Horsmann and Johnson loved the beauty and craftsmanship of the silver and pewter pieces that the artists produced. But it was not long before they realized they were in trouble.

“There was nobody coming up through the ranks,” Johnson said. “The masters were dying out. We tried for 10 years to find apprentices who could learn the craft.”

But working in silver produced little gold for the artists.

“You needed to apprentice under a master for seven or eight years. And then after that you would only be making $30,000 a year, tops,” said Randy Stromsoe, now a 42-year-old Cambria silversmith who apprenticed under Blanchard. “So people thought: ‘Why do it?’ ”

Wise was the shop’s last master silversmith when he died two years ago. Nine months later, master spinner Frank Zika also died. He had been the man who produced the shop’s silver bowls, pitchers and other holloware by shaping metal sheets around spinning wooden forms.

Johnson said she searched among members of the Society of American Silversmiths for artisans to hire. But she found that most of those who call themselves silversmiths create jewelry--not dinnerware. And few work fast enough to produce the volume of knives, forks and spoons needed for place settings.

“Some looked good on paper, but when we brought them out it only took 30 minutes or so to tell they were not living up to their credentials,” said Johnson, 50, of Canoga Park.

Stromsoe, who now has his own thriving studio, declined Johnson’s invitation to come back to Los Angeles. A promising silversmith from Massachusetts also declined.

“He was ready to come at first,” said Horsmann, 75, of Calabasas. “But then we had the riots, and right after that we had an earthquake. His wife told him she’d divorce him if he moved out here.”

The search turned international after that.

“We brought over a silversmith from England--we had to hire a lawyer to get him over here. But when he got here, he ruined more stuff than he made,” Horsmann said. “We found one or two in Germany, but never could get them to even come.”

So they decided to close Porter Blanchard Silversmiths.

“It’s upsetting to see a 205-year-old company go,” Johnson said, walking through the modest workroom that produced millions of dollars worth of silverware. “But if we had to compromise quality, there was no reason to go further.”

Cobwebs covered the homemade forge that heated the metal. On a nearby workbench, worn hand files were still scattered. Across the room, polishing belts were hanging from hooks on one wall. On another, 100-year-old spoon and fork patterns dangled from nails.

In a corner of the shop, Johnson reached into a bin and scooped out a handful of silver dust. It had been ground from fork prongs as the last silverware was polished for the final time.

“This sounds so funny,” she said as a sparkling cascade of silver tumbled from her fingers. “But sometimes we’d be so poor that we had to take our cuttings and melt them down to make one more knife.

“This was never a huge, profit-making business.”

A six-piece Porter Blanchard place setting--a dinner knife, butter spreader, dinner fork, salad fork, dessert spoon and tea spoon--sold for up to $1,600. But it could involve $800 worth of silver--and it represented a full day’s output for a silversmith.

Most expensive silverware is now stamped out in a single stroke by machine. But a hand-wrought Porter Blanchard fork required about 1,100 hammer blows from a craftsman who had started out with a pencil-length, 3-ounce piece of sterling.

And there were no shortcuts.

“Some days I’d come back here and tell the men I needed a particular piece that day. They’d laugh and say, ‘Well, if you want it that bad, you’ll get it bad,’ ” Johnson said.

The silversmith shop is being sold to doctors who will turn it into a medical office once the final few leftover silver and pewter pieces are sold, she said. The shop’s rooftop weather vane, made in the silhouette of a silversmith and his hammer, will be taken down.

But one thing will remain the same about Calabasas Street where Blanchard silversmiths spent the last 33 of their 205 years.

Los Angeles County has named it Craftsman Road.