Antique French Oak

French vintners coined the term terroir to describe the earthy mix of climate, soil, and weather conditions that make wine taste the way it does. There’s no equivalent word to describe lumber, but the concept of terroir applies: every piece of wood on earth originally came from a tree, and that tree grew on a unique patch of soil in its particular corner of the world. The wind, weather, soil and sun make it what it is. That’s why this collection of Antique French Oak is so special, and couldn’t be replicated in any other place.

Sourced last autumn, this wood was salvaged from floorboards in farmhouses east of Paris in the French towns of Metz, Nancy, Dijon, as well as Lorraine and Bougogne in the region of Est. Dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, thesehouses were sturdily built and well loved. You wouldn’t find the kind of high-polish case furniture favored by the various Louis here; instead you’d be enchanted by the rustic simplicity and unspoiled beauty of the architecture and the surrounding countryside. Picture charmingly idiosyncratic paint colors, pictures and lighting fixtures just slightly askew, clean and fresh-smelling tea towels, and the promise of fresh bread each morning. So much history and daily life unfolded in these houses, and some pieces of it are coming to America.

WOODEN BOATWORKS

Reclaimed wood isn’t just for houses: some of the antique lumber we salvage finds its way to the workshop of Wooden Boatworks in Greenport, Long Island, where it plays a role in making classic wooden boats shipshape. Their team builds, maintains, and restores vintage boats using the traditional tools and techniques of shipwrighting. In this short film, Wooden Boatworks partner and expert sailor Steve Lubitz explains that many of the antique boats they work on come from the “golden age of yachting,” that is, the late 1800’s through the 1940s. For certain restoration projects, the team might need rare wood that’s difficult to find, such as mahogany for a boat’s interior. The Hudson Company can supply the kind of lumber “that doesn’t exist anymore,” says Steve, and can only be sourced through careful salvaging. Boats are heirlooms like any other, and carry as much personal and family history as a home.

New Life for a Hudson Valley Victorian

When David Ren bought Twin Bridges, his 1860’s Victorian mansion in New York’s Hudson Valley, it had seen better days. Weather, time, foreclosure, and even animals had taken their toll, and there was only one bathroom in the house that worked. An extension that had previously housed a 19th century kitchen was unsalvageable, which presented Ren and the team at Workstead with an intriguing challenge: design and build a new volume in its place that was both contemporary and contextual. Inspired by the quirky glamour of the Eastlake style home’s original bones, Workstead created a streamlined, two-story pavilion that echoes—but doesn’t mimic—the original. Where the front part of the house is painted ivory, its form animated by lots of crisp Victorian angles, the back part is curved like an Art Deco cruise ship, and its exterior is charred black.

Ren and Workstead had collaborated before: the firm helped give his Chelsea condo its distinctive character, and helped renovate his historic Charleston carriage house, which dates from the 1850s. There are elements of Workstead’s multifaceted practice to be found throughout Twin Bridges: there’s the architecture itself, the interior design, and the lighting, which includes unique fixtures like the eye-catching Orbit chandelier, which floats above a Nathan Lindberg cocktail table.

A color palette of jewel tones, such as Farrow & Ball’s Inchyra Blue, evokes the spirit of William Morris’s floral wallpaper, but instead of fussy, it feels relaxed and sophisticated. To complement the rich hues of the paint, furniture and textiles, there’s custom mahogany millwork restored to its original splendor, and The Hudson Company provided Bare, Ash flooring—a wood that has historically been used for building horse-drawn carriages, weapons, and even sporting equipment. The carriage trade may be a thing of the past in the Hudson Valley, but happily there’s still plenty of enthusiasm for the eccentricity and charm of Victorian high style.

Photography by Matthew Williams

History & Handcrafting on Crosby Street

Underneath a bank of skylights in her Crosby Street loft, with all her tools arrayed on a butcher block work table, artist Jill Platner makes her signature feather-like metal jewelry by hand. She’s developed a method for joining pieces of metal so that it drapes like fabric, and she has an acute feel for the material and knowledge of the tools of her trade. And she does all this inside a Federal style house in NoHo that practically radiates American history. Originally built in 1823 as a townhouse for James Roosevelt, an ancestor of FDR, in the 1850s the building housed a hospital run by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to earn a medical degree. With her sister Emily, also a physician (the sisters were the first and third women in America to earn medical degrees, respectively) Blackwell rented the building in 1857 and made it the home of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. With the help of wealthy benefactors, many of them Quaker, the Blackwells ran the first hospital in America that was staffed entirely by women. 

The hospital ran by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell that occupied the Crosby Street building in the 1850s.

Platner is fascinated by the building’s past, and her painstaking work renovating the building has revealed tantalizing pieces of its history. When she first toured it as a young designer in need of studio space in the 1990s, she noticed details like the chisel marks on the wooden beams—clearly the handiwork of a skilled craftsman—and recognized something of a kindred spirit. Platner made the light-filled top floor her studio, then expanded into the adjacent carriage house which is where she fabricates jewelry and makes large-scale metal sculptures.

The original flooring before being salvaged and milled by The Hudson Company.

In 2007 when she was preparing to buy her space, Platner discovered the story of the Blackwell sisters. Her top-floor studio was once the dormitory for the physicians and interns, while the lower floors were devoted to the maternity and illness wards, the pharmacy, and the waiting area. By 2012, when Platner became a part owner of the building, it was badly in need of repairs. There were bulging bricks and the roof was in dire straits. But she was committed to keeping intact as much of the building’s original material as she could, and that’s where The Hudson Company came in. Underneath some particle board, she discovered ten-inch wide boards that were original to the house. Well worn and quite uneven, Platner arranged to send the salvaged boards up to Pine Plains where they were milled and finished, then reinstalled. Now even and uniform, but still full of history and character, the floors are back where they belong on Crosby Street. “It looks incredible,” Platner says. “You can feel history in it.”

Jill Platner’s Studio. Photo credit: Aundre Larrow for The New York Times.

Rediscovering Antique Heart Pine in a Historic New England Textile Mill

At The Hudson Company, we reclaim heritage wood sustainably. Often that means salvaging it from beautiful places like this, the Draper Mill building in Hopedale, Massachusetts, where past and present meet. Though it’s quiet today, this mill—spanning over one million square feet—was once a major industrial hub that produced textiles on high-speed power looms. The Draper family built the mill complex in the 19th century using the preferred building materials of the era. One element in particular was exactly what we hoped we’d find when we visited: Antique Heart Pine timber. Milled and finished according to our exacting specifications, this wood will enjoy a second life as the fine flooring, paneling, and beams we are known for. Luckily, we knew just where to find it.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE TO SEE OUR ANTIQUE HEART PINE RECLAMATION.

Inspiration in Imperfection: Reclaimed Wood and JB Blunk's Handcrafted Legacy

JB Blunk’s home on the Inverness Ridge with Redwood Enry Arch, 1976. Photo credit: ©LeslieWilliamson

J.B. Blunk’s art career was probably inevitable one form or another, but it was a chance encounter with Isamu Noguchi in a Tokyo craft shop that put him on course to become one of the most innovative American craftsmen of the 20th century. It was the early 1950s, and Blunk—then a soldier in the US Army, stationed in Korea—was browsing at the craft shop when he met Noguchi who was there with his wife. Yamaguchi Yoshiko. Prior to his tour in Korea, Blunk had been a student at UCLA where he became fascinated by ceramics, and Noguchi decided to introduce him to the Japanese artistic polymath Kitaoji Rosanjin, who made exquisite, rustic and colorful pottery inspired by historical Japanese ceramics, as well as lacquerware and calligraphy. Blunk apprenticed himself to Rosanjin, became a skilled potter in his own right, and later worked for artist Toyo Kaneshige, a Living National Treasure. Returning to California in 1954, he was now energized and inspired to embark on a life in which craft shaped every corner of his life. Blunk’s name isn’t synonymous with midcentury style, and he’s not a household name. (Yet.) But with exhibitions in major galleries, including Kasmin and Blum & Poe, introducing his work to new audiences, his legacy seems to be getting the second look it deserves.

J.B. Blunk in his studio, c.1968. Courtesy: J.B. Blunk Collection

Interior of JB Blunk’s home with river stones and artworks by Blunk. Untitled painting, c.1990, and Redwood stool, c.1965.
Photo credit: ©LeslieWilliamson

J.B. Blunk (1926–2002) was born in Ottawa, Kansas, and studied physics before switching to ceramics in college. Like Wharton Esherick, Blunk was an artist who didn’t make much of a distinction between home and studio. And like George Nakashima, he found much inspiration in the natural structure of wood—its knots, grain, colors, and textures. Blunk settled in the town of Inverness in the mid-1950s, and decided to build a cabin there himself. Now known as the Blunk House, the home was described in T Magazine as “a cottage from a midcentury-modern fairytale.” There’s a potter’s studio with three kilns, and a woodshop. Maria Nielson, Blunk’s daughter, and the author of a book on Blunk’s work, spends time at the house, where her father made everything from the sleeping loft to the ceramics in the kitchen by hand.

Woven into the fabric of the landscape and the house itself is redwood. The table in Blunk’s kitchen is crafted from a gigantic slab of redwood, and they dot the mountainous landscape of Inverness as far as the eye can see. Blunk was active in a variety of media, including clay and cast bronze, but his primary medium was wood. Sometimes a chainsaw was part of the picture. Blunk’s favored wood species was redwood, though he occasionally used cypress. Redwood’s characteristic color and natural softness gives it working properties that are almost clay-like. Blunk would salvage chunks of redwood on the landscape that had been discarded by loggers, and make use of his findings in the ways that best suited their scale. Using his chainsaw, he’d carve chairs out of single pieces of wood, sometimes creating “seating sculptures” that seemed to hover somewhere between sculpture and furniture. According to Mariah Nielson, even the bathroom sink in the Blunk House bears chisel marks.

Interior of JB Blunk’s home with artworks by Blunk, sofa by Max Frommeld, and cushions by Christine Nielson and Nancy Waite Harlow.
Photo credit: ©LeslieWilliamson

From his time studying ceramics in Japan, Blunk was steeped in the aesthetic and philosophical principle of wabi sabi, which is difficult to translate precisely, but in an artistic context means accepting transience and imperfection, finding beauty in it, and not trying to “fix” anything about an object. Wabi sabi had a powerful influence on both historical Japanese crafts and on mingei, the Japanese craft revival movement that emerged there in response to industrialization in the 1930s, and was several decades underway when Blunk visited Tokyo.

A wabi sabi approach to craft could mean embracing asymmetry, or a nick or a scratch, or a perceived flaw in a piece of wood—like a discarded burl of no interest to commercial loggers. Blunk took the lesson of his craft training and applied it to working with reclaimed wood. Natural “flaws” became centerpieces, and odd shapes were just another form of inspiration. A major work entitled “The Planet,” completed in 1969, can be viewed at the Oakland Museum of California. It’s made from a single, the enormous root structure of a redwood—the only remains of a long-dead tree. It was typical of Blunk to salvage something that others had overlooked, and to create from it something unique, odd, and beautiful, that seemed at once ancient and modern. Perfection isn’t easy. But imperfection, at its best, is even harder to achieve. It seems safe to say that J.B. Blunk nailed it.

Wishbone, 1977. Sculpted Redwood, 110h x 54w x 35d in.
Image via Jason Jacques Gallery.

Protecting your floors this winter

Now that the dry months of Winter are upon us, we’d like to remind all our clients and colleagues that it’s important to care for your wood floors by monitoring the environmental conditions in your home, office, and retail spaces.

The natural expansion and contraction of wood caused by relative humidity levels that are either too high or too low can adversely affect floors, paneling, millwork, and even furniture.

Here are a few easy ways to protect and maintain your floors this season:

1. Purchase a digital hygrometer

2. Maintain an interior temperature between 60 - 75 degrees Fahrenheit

3. Maintain an interior relative humidity of 35 - 55%

For more information, please visit the National Wood Flooring Association’s website, or contact The Hudson Company directly.

Reflecting on THE legacy of artistic problem-solver Wharton Esherick

If you’re familiar with the work of Wharton Esherick (1887–1970), you’re probably imagining the most famous spiral staircase in Pennsylvania right now. Built in 1930 to replace a traditional staircase, it’s tightly curled and elegantly carved from red oak, with a rustic form that appears to defy gravity. Its thick treads seem to float as they spiral around a curvy central column. They’re actually mortised in place and supported by tenons, but the lack of any supporting structure (apart from a mastodon tusk handrail that was added in the late 1940s) gives the staircase an air of magic. It’s just one example from a long career in which Esherick seemed to ask himself what he could do with wood, and never backed away from a surprising answer. Unorthodox solutions and clever workarounds abound in his unique home and studio in Paoli, PA, which is now the site of the Wharton Esherick Museum. And that makes sense, because he never trained as a woodworker; first and foremost he was an artist, and he was able to fashion wonders from any material, never letting the strictures of carpentry fence him in.

The Spiral Staircase in Wharton Esherick's home and studio, 1930.
Photo credit: ©LeslieWilliamson from Handcrafted Modern, Rizzoli, 2010.

Wharton Esherick in his studio with his sculpture Oblivion (dated
1934.) Photo credit: c. 1934 by Emil Luks. Image courtesy of the
Wharton Esherick Museum.

Famous for saying “If it isn’t fun, it isn’t worth doing,” Esherick crafted furniture, made sculpture, designed lighting and interior fittings, and even whole buildings. He’s considered an icon of the Studio Furniture Movement of the mid-20th century, and having lived and worked in Bucks County, he’s also linked to a group of important Pennsylvania makers of his era: George Nakashima, Phillip Lloyd Powell, and Paul Evans. He came from a well-to-do Philadelphia family, and studied printmaking and drawing at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now known as the University of the Arts), then painting at PAFA, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was discovering the world of painting just as American Impressionism was flourishing in Philadelphia and Bucks County. Esherick and his wife Letty settled in Paoli after finishing school and bought an historic farmhouse. Here he became interested in carpentry and the sculptural possibilities afforded by wood.

Esherick initially carved woodcuts—a natural outgrowth of his printmaking practice from art school—then he began making abstract sculptures from wood from in the 1920s. In 1926 his work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He then embarked on the long process of designing and building his own home and studio. And by the mid-1930’s, he was creating elaborate interior elements for local clients such as his famous doorway and fireplace for the Curtis Bok House. Considered some of his most important works, the dramatic doorway was meant to evoke the look of draping fabric, while the fireplace, which echoes Art Deco design but veers toward a more extreme, angular style, was inspired by the dramatic shadows cast by a roaring fire.

Fireplace and door by Wharton Esherick from the Curtis Bok House,
1935. Image courtesy of the Wharton Esherick Museum.

“A Pennsylvania Hill House” designed by architect George Howe for
the "America at Home" display at the 1939 World's Fair. Photo by Richard Garrison. Image courtesy of the Wharton Esherick Museum.

Over the next several decades, his work was hard to pin down stylistically. Some works were crisp and geometric like the Bok House architectural elements. Others, like his own staircase and the biomorphic, abstract forms he sculpted, were soft and organic. In 1940, he created a suite of furniture for the exhibition “America at Home” for the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. Sixteen architects were invited to design rooms for the exhibition showcasing new American designs, and architect George Howe, who designed Philadelphia’s PSFS building on Market Street, invited Esherick to take part. Howe’s room was called “A Pennsylvania Hill House,” and its design captured the mix of modern and rustic style that was emerging in places like Bucks County in the middle decades of the 20th century. Esherick’s contributions to the exhibition included a sofa from the Bok house, the famous spiral staircase, a five-sided hickory table, and cherrywood wall panels. This exhibition represented the first time that Esherick’s work was seen by a wide-ranging public. Lousie V. Sloane, who was in charge of publicity for the “America at Home” display, wrote in a letter to Esherick that “The ‘Pennsylvania Hill House’ is a very popular room with visitors… and the stairway continues to bring forth exclamations, questions and comments from those who go through the building.” 

By his later years, Wharton Esherick was known among colleagues and admirers as the “Dean of American Craftsmen.” His work would eventually earn him a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum of Arts and Design) in 1958, and a Gold Medal from the New York Architectural League. His work is included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. One legacy of Esherick’s earliest years working with wood—and a renewable form of accessible art—are his printed holiday cards.

When he was first settling in Paoli and exploring his new surroundings, he made prints that captured the seasons, and his snow-covered scenes of houses and hills were very popular when he made them (and they still are today.) One such print, called “January,” appeared in The Century Magazine, and other prints of his were published in Vanity Fair and The New Republic. “January” depicts a person walking up a road blanketed with snow, with a single blackbird perched on a nearby fence, and four more circling overhead. Using the end grain of a block of wood to create the image, he carved away much of the lower third of the print to leave a pillowy expanse of pristine snowfall. It has an air of mystery, with frost disguising the landscape underneath, and the figure faces away from us. Looking at this image now, it seems quite modern for 1923. And in 2020, there’s something uncannily familiar about it. This holiday season, marked in so many ways by the COVID pandemic, means that many of us have carved out small groups to celebrate with, and some of us will celebrate solo. It feels strange, and it’s not easy. Esherick’s print is not overtly “Christmas-y,” and contains no text, but its single figure with his neighborly birds sends us a timely and powerful message. The only thing to do, especially in the cold and unknown, is to walk straight ahead.

“January”, 1923, wood engraving by Wharton Esherick. Image courtesy
of the Wharton Esherick Museum.

SCHOTTEN & HANSEN at The Hudson Company

The Hudson Company is pleased to announce our new partnership with the venerable German flooring company Schotten & Hansen, which produces responsibly harvested wood of peerless quality. Now on view at our New York City showroom, the Schotten & Hansen Collection for The Hudson Company combines two distinct legacies in the design world, providing American clients with seamless access to Schotten & Hansen products. This new relationship means access to an expanded range of top quality lumber for flooring, panels and interiors with the service, knowledge, and craftsmanship you already know.

Founder Torben Hansen has described his company as a “mediator between nature and architecture.” Established in 1984, Schotten & Hansen is the premier producer of fine wood for flooring, paneling and interiors in Europe. Based in Peiting, Germany, Schotten & Hansen makes its wood products “for life,” meaning that their wood lasts a lifetime, and that their natural approach to sourcing and finishing wood is as safe as anything you would eat or wear. No solvents or acrylic glues ever touch Schotten & Hansen lumber—the company finds all the ingredients they need in nature, using beeswax, minerals, and oils to color and finish their products. Like The Hudson Company, Schotten & Hansen provides the finest quality wood available to some of the most prominent interior designers and architects in the world. Schotten & Hansen’s project can be found all over the globe. Several recent highlights in New York include the new GOOP Store, the Crosby Street Hotel in SoHo, the Whitby Hotel in Midtown, and numerous residences designed by top architects around the world.

Schotten & Hansen Shrunk Face, European Oak flooring in Driftwood color at Goop Lab, NYC. Photo: Adrian Gaut.

Schotten & Hansen Shrunk Face, European Oak flooring in Oyster Dark color at The Crosby Street Hotel, NYC. Design by Kit Kemp. Photo: Simon Brown.

The partnership between The Hudson Company and Schotten & Hansen means access to a new range of top quality lumber for flooring, panels and interiors with the service, knowledge, and craftsmanship you already know. Schotten & Hansen’s practice of finishing wood by hand yields a product that’s designed to stand the test of time and age beautifully. Torben Hansen believes machines are “no match” for traditional German woodworking techniques. Their wood is the lumber equivalent of haute couture: you won’t find a more luxurious or perfectly finished product anywhere. A tree’s life cycle doesn’t end when it is harvested; if it’s crafted and finished in just the right way, its wood enhances the beauty of an interior and enriches the experience of those who live there for generations to come.

BROWSE OUR SCHOTTEN & HANSEN COLLECTION

The Finishing Touch on a New York Showroom

If Schotten & Hansen had a kindred spirit in the interior design world, it may have been Christian Liaigre, the French designer of furniture and interiors who passed away in September aged 77. Back in 2018, his eponymous firm opened a new showroom on 29th Street in Manhattan’s Nomad district, where his signature aesthetic—described in The New York Times by Penelope Green as “muscular and elegant”—was made manifest with flooring from Schotten & Hansen. Liaigre was devoted to fine craftsmanship, and admired the skill of accomplished makers. He designed interiors for Calvin Klein and Karl Lagerfeld, and he loved using elemental materials like bronze, stone, and wenge wood. He’s also credited with pioneering the concept of the boutique hotel, having designed SoHo’s Mercer Hotel in 1997—his first big project in the United States.

Liaigre showroom, New York City.

Hotel Montalembert, Paris.

Born in 1943 near La Rochelle, Liaigre studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. His inspiration came from an array of sources, many of which, like African art, had widely influenced French Modernism. He was also the grandson of a horse breeder, and growing up he studied the ingenious design and construction of saddles, bridles and stirrups carefully. He liked exposed joinery, and disliked applied ornament, which meant his interiors and furniture were in sync with the pared down modern look of post-industrial lofts in the 1990’s and 2000’s.

He designed the Hotel Montalembert in Paris for a 1990 renovation before moving to the United States, and there he made bold, eclectic choices like pairing carved African sculptures with Ancien Régime furniture. He was also famous for a stool he designed in homage to Brancusi’s “Endless Column,” a square block of wood that flares out at a dramatic angle at the top, forming a primitive seat.

Liaigre showroom, New York City.

Custom floors by Schotten & Hansen at the Liaigre Showroom, NYC.

Liaigre’s reverence for craftsmanship comes through in the design of his New York showroom. The floors are Schotten & Hansen’s Shrunk Face European Oak, which is a light, straw-colored wood (the color is custom, in fact) and adds a depth of natural texture to the crisp space, emphasizing Liaigre’s particular love of wood in all its subtle variation. The interior is meant to be a neutral setting in which to stage Liaigre’s pieces of furniture and lighting, which are invariably bold in design, at times massive, understated in color, and usually sumptuous in their material.

Shrunk Face Oak is now available in 20 colors at our New York showroom through the Schotten & Hansen Collection for The Hudson Company.