Suzanne Kasler Discusses her October Showroom Inspirations at Hickory Chair

During the last October furniture market in High Point, Suzanne Kasler was kind enough to deconstruct her design process and convey her latest inspirations in her Hickory Chair showroom. Suzanne loves to create a feminine neutral space and is renown for her couture dress maker details. Her collaborations with clients have taken her from the preserves of Kenya to Blackberry Farm in the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. Elegant comfort defines and unites these widely diverse cultural settings. Suzanne's line at Hickory Chair is an entirely custom experience. A broad range of finishes and wood species are available for all the pieces in the collection. The upholstery can be made to measure, with abundant bespoke options. In addition to her furniture line at Hickory Chair, she also has lighting at Visual Comfort, art at Soicher Marin, and fabrics at Lee Jofa. Take a moment and watch Suzanne's design secrets. Dovecote Decor can help you purchase any Hickory Chair furniture piece.

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High Point Market Highlights April 2014

After five straight days of hoofing it through market, I hopped a bus to Lexington, Kentucky with the High Point Garden Club and the Bienenstock Furniture Library. We visited beautiful historic houses not to mention Keeneland. More about that later... meanwhile let me send you a round-up on High Point highlights from the April 2014 market. Below we have the ever gracious and talented Mariette Himes Gomez of Hickory Chair showing her classic, clean and completely elegant line of furniture.  We just cannot help leading with one of our favorite furniture companies in the world!!

Mariette's luxurious Syrie Maugham sofa recalls the elegance of the '30's and 40's with a silk satin fabric articulating the luxurious glamor of the era.

You need to wear this on the sofa! 

Mariette's Porter Divan dons a creamy leather with impressive trapunto detailing on the back illustrating the virtuoso workmanship executed by the artisans of Hickory Chair.

Alexa Hampton uses her showroom as a design laboratory. Absolutely no designer at market shows such range in style, but the extra push creates great anticipation from High Point devotees. It trains our eye to visualize the elasticity of her line in a seemingly unlimited parade of genres.

We were all in awe of the fact that Alexa created all of the collages and paintings in her showrooms. This year her inspiration came from a book that she read as a young girl in her father's library: La Réussité de la Decoration Française, vols. I & II.  Channeling the unmistakeably chic Gallic aesthetic, these rooms speak of old world luxury layered and collected from past generations through the present.

Suzanne Kasler revived these fabulous DeGournay panels from years ago. Known for her serene and feminine spaces, Suzanne adds exquisite dressmaker tapes, nail heads creating rooms that are livable, finished and fresh.

French inspired twin beds kick into the millennium with a slightly elongated headboard. A bold Phillip Jeffries painted graphic wall covering, hung on a single surface, energizes the space without dominating the scene. Bright tribal patterns with a casual striped area rug balance elegance with a low-key interesting collected sophisticated vibe. Suzanne's interiors are like meeting a famous person and discovering that they are highly companionable!

We love Chelsea House as their line ticks all our requirements for our online store and residential clientele. Great Prices--check...Great Workmanship--check....Great style--check.....Multi-tasking transitional pieces--check. Lisa Kahn is the guiding light of design in this atelier and we hit it for several days at market. If you don't go, its like going to New York and eating fast food--you'd be missing the boat!

There's a small new crop of 19th century reproduction casino chairs popping up in various showrooms. C.R. Laine's version has the best leather, scale and price of the few I'm grooving on lately. I start to think that I am crazy, but Shay Geyer did Style Spot it, so another set of eyes share my quirks. May I add that it is wonderfully comfortable as a dining, desk or occasional chair.

All of design and media land came out for the Mary McDonald launch at Chaddock. It was fabulous, and I hadn't been in Chaddock since they showed their fare up on Hamilton. Things have changed... I can only identify Newell Turner of Hearst and Mary McDonald in this image, but it was slammed with "The Talent." We loved seeing our old friend Jay Reardon, previously of Hickory Chair and current chairman of the executive committee at Chaddock also sitting on their board. Margaret Russel and her stable of editors was there as well as the Traditional Home girls. 

I was excited to meet David Easton and view his collection. He's a charmer that one, but in my humble opinion his work is in The Great Tradition, confirmed by the fact that he knelt down and kissed my hand. I was blushing.....

More Later!! 

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Hickory Chair Illustrates Value Driven Management--and It Works!!

A. Hoke Ltd. of Charlotte kindly sponsored Dovecote Decor for Hickory Chair University. Forty designers congregated in Hickory, N.C. for 2 days of education demonstrating how our clients' furniture is assembled, finished and upholstered. Steered by president Jay Reardon, we were treated to much more than nuts and bolts. Christine and I were awed by the level of leadership, sense of community and the outright pride and happiness at all levels of this organization. We witnessed highly diverse individuals sharing a mission that is focused by a constantly fine tuned process.

Hickory Chair is like very few organizations I have ever experienced. At the 100th anniversary party I told Jay: "Hickory Chair is not an institution--it is a movement!" That is true for so many reasons. Trying to articulate this phenomena, I found two books on opposite sides of the spectrum which express this dichotomy as a universal best practices for teams that attract a community of raving fans: Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity and Marketing Lessons of the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History.

The Cistercian Order is dedicated to Spiritual Growth through work, community and creating the highest quality products to support their monasteries and convents. The 48th chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict states "for then are they monks in truth, if they live by the work of their hands".  For example,   Trappist Westvleteran 12 is considered to be the best beer in the world. 

Bear with me, but what do the Trappist Monks, the Grateful Dead and Hickory Chair have in common? Quite a bit actually! All three work with complete reverence to produce the highest quality product while creating a work environment that nurtures their communities. Counter intuitively, Hickory Chair has survived and created a broad designer driven line that can be completely customized while building 90% of their product in the U.S.A! They have accomplished this with only three price increases in the last decade. Hickory Chair management sees themselves as facilitators and communicators at every level of the organization, from the artisans who build the product to the designers who conceive the product. Everyone is encouraged to share improvements and ideas in a constant dynamic process with concrete systems in place to execute these changes.

Dedicated to the premise that this company will be different tomorrow than it is today and creating a process called EDGE (Employees Dedicated to Growth and Excellence),  Hickory Chair thrives in a notoriously difficult industry. Constantly seeking errors and communicating concrete solutions forms an enabled  and accountable team that works together smartly as a unit.  August Turak shared in his book this interesting point: "Louis Mobely of the famed IBM Executive School discovered what great executives share are not skills or knowledge, but values and attitudes. Great leaders thrive on ambiguity." Respect, empowerment and trust at all levels cultivate a work place where the human spirit thrives. Jay was not going to be the guy that padlocked the factory doors and fired his workers. He did not know the answers to his dilemna so he assembled his artisans to devise solutions.

When a competitor exactly replicated (knocked off) one of their products, Hickory Chair investigated and made a side by side comparison. The  competitor's chair (on the left) was made more cheaply with a higher retail price. Consumers get respect too!. When market opens in  High Point, Hickory Chair's showrooms are universally lauded as the most exciting experience at market. Like the Grateful Dead and the Trappist Monks, Hickory Chair creates an experience that translates into  community and culture. The scene is shored up with complete authenticity.

We all love bantering with Alexa Hampton, Thomas O'Brien, Suzanne Kasler and Mariette Himes Gomez--all Architectural Digest top 100 designers. There's no micromanaging their showrooms--the designers "do their thing." Like a Grateful Dead show, they never play the same song the same way.
Because the furniture is bespoke, followers and designers love to see the infinite possibilities at each market. Here are some spectacular room arrangements of Alexa's line over the years.

We love to see the mood boards throughout the showrooms.  It is fascinating watch the disparate visual cues that inspire the designers from conception to final product.

Hable Construction illustrates their textile design process at the Hickory Chair showroom. 

Artisan Boards in the Factory

The print is hard to read, but essentially the notes explain why even small steps in the process are of paramount importance, graphically demonstrating the difference when something goes right or wrong. Over 1,100 hand-worker ideas are implemented each year at Hickory Chair! The details are evidenced by the immaculate floors that are constantly swept, the sawdust that is vacuumed into the electrical system to generate power and save electricity. So what do Hickory Chair, the Trappist monks and the Grateful Dead have in common?

 *Quality Products--Trappist Beers are the only beers that improve with age.

*Commitment to a constantly evolving process--short cuts are in efficiency--quality is never compromised

*Dedication to keeping humanity in the equation while creating a more beautiful world includes quality of life at every level

And...There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert!!
*All disperate products united by the will to create an innovative culture and community of raving fans!!
See Jay Reardon on the Daily Show

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For an in-depth discussion of the unique approach of Hickory Chair's management and production innovations:
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Luther Lashmit's Adamsleigh: The Junior League of Greensboro and Traditional Home's Showcase House April 2013

Thanks to the Junior League of Greensboro and Traditional Home, the spot light is on Luther Lashmit, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina native and architect to the industrial revolution scions of the early 20th century.  Tobacco, textiles and furniture revived the broken post civil war South, in the same way that the electronic, and computer revolution generated fortunes at the end of the 20th century. World War I fueled Southern industries as soldiers required uniforms, underwear, socks and gun-stocks, as armies consumed vast quantities of tobacco. Cone Mills of Greensboro produced miles of denim while their heirs fed the modern impressionist artists in Paris. With the South resurrected, versus reconstructed, Southerners transferred their positions as plantation owners to estate builders.  The Junior League Showcase House in Greensboro is one of Lashmit's period house masterpieces. Commissioned by textile (hosiery) business man, John Hampton Adams, Adamsleigh has endured as a prime example of the American Country House Movement, comparable to the great estates of Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Newport and Long Island.

Luther Lashmit, of the offices of Northrup and O'Brien was undoubtedly commissioned to lead the Adamsleigh  project, because of his great success with Graylyn, the home of Natalie Lyons and Bowman Gray of Winston-Salem.  Northrup and O'Brien had maintained close communication with the local Lashmit throughout his education and career. Receiving his architecture degree from The Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA.,  Lashmit went on to win the prestigious Fontainebleau Fellowship, studying at the revered Ecole des-Beaux-Arts, traveling extensively to survey the great houses of England, France and Italy. Having taught architecture in Georgia and Pittsburg, Northrup and O'Brien brought Lashmit home to create the Gray's magnificent Norman Revival estate which was to be the second largest house in North Carolina after Biltmore.

A Portion of the Graylyn Front facade

Lashmit, in conjunction with the Northrup and O'Brien office assembled an unrivaled team to complete the vision of the sophisticated and well traveled Reynolds Tobacco magnate and his wife. Europe had not fully recovered from the Great War and wealthy American industrialists traveled throughout Europe and the Mediterranean purchasing masterpiece ancient rooms, fireplaces, paneling and flooring for their trophy estates. Arthur Cassell Graffin of Baltimore designed and procured much of the interior architecture with Northrup O'Brien. Very notably, J. Barton Benson, a wrought iron master craftsman of Philadelphia, created the detailed intricate gates, locks, railings and other metallurgic flourishes through out Graylyn and later Adamsleigh. 

The distinguishing departure of the Country House Movement from its feudal predecessors is aptly noted by Harry Desmond and Herbert Crowly in their early survey: Stately Homes in America (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1903) 

".....our greater rural residences are..... occupied by people who, no matter how varied and sincere, their interest in their country places {may be}, spend their money upon the land without any reference to making money on it."

Graylyn Rear Facade

Harvard trained landscape architect, Thomas Warren Sears, who had worked with Fredrick Law Olmsted was introduced to North Carolina and Virginia industrialists via his Reynolda House Commission through Charles Barton Keen, chief architect of the earlier R.J. Reynolds estate, across the street. The collective design team was easily transferred to the Adamsleigh project. While there are many vernacular similarities, adaptations were made to create a unique estate. 

Unusually this house remained in the original family from inception to 2003.

Employing a brick veneer versus Graylyn's stone facade, makes Adamsleigh more Norman English than French Norman. Characteristics of these European houses adapted for 1920's tastes included fewer, but more spacious rooms for grand entertaining with open floor plans. Picturesque, French style estates were designed to look as though they had grown organically over time transitioning from fortifications to homes. To achieve these ends, Lashmit massed irregular outlines along asymmetrical wings. Graceful, quaint chimneys rose above round, square or hexagonal towers pierced by narrow windows enclosing spectacular vertiginous medieval staircases. The Graylyn stair tower has holders for plants and flowers that are reminiscent of Addison Mizner's Worth Avenue. Creative cribbing is common in design, and my friend, Tom Gray who wrote his Master's Thesis on Graylyn discovered an identical previous image from the Newbold house in Laverock, PA. 

Grayln stair tower

Adamsleigh has come through a remarkable era of singular family ownership. The current asking price of $4,000,000 will hopefully attract a preservation minded buyer. Meanwhile, we will tantalize you with the empty rooms that are being reinterpreted by this talented roster of designers building on the legacy of the great Country Home architects, landscape designers, interior architects and artisanal craftsman. 

 Adamsleigh

I chatted up Suzanne Kasler in her stunning space at Hickory Chair today and her excitement over the project was refreshing.  She relayed that Miles Redd was up to his usual theatrical magic and was afforded a great amount of creative latitude. I noticed world class floral designer, Randy McManus, was  present and accounted for. Blogger friends Lisa Mende and Traci Zeller have been sending fun, behind the scenes posts worth perusing. The list is endless and it will be fascinating to see an intact American Country Place refurbished by a complimentary contingent 83 years after inception.

Suzanne Kasler waxed poetic about the original metal, window doorways that flank the house:

"These are the doors we want to install in both contemporary and traditional houses, we can't get enough of it now, and there they are exactly as we want them from the 1920's."

 Rear Terraces by Thomas Sears at Adamsleigh

 Adamsleigh aerial view

 Adamsleigh mantel detail

The Thomas Sears Gardens at Adamsleigh

 I spoke with charming architect, Bob Myers, who spent many years working and traveling with Luther Lashmit. He was impressed by the fact that Lashmit moved brilliantly in multiple vernaculars and was able to adapt skillfully to modern architecture. Notably, Merry Acres, for  R.J. Reynolds Jr., was a 1940's marvel. Dick Reynolds received his pilot's license from Wilbur Wright and was also a competitive yachtsman. He wanted his house to feel like one great cruise and Lashmit delivered. 

Softened by nautical curves with extending decks, a pilot's house and smoke stack/chimney, Merry Acres is a wonderful idiosyncratic home.  I, for one, think houses should have personality. Luther Lashmit had a fluid, creative ability to treat with the past and effortlessly leap into the future. 

Kind thanks also to my friend Tom Gray for encouraging me to read his master's thesis on the Graylyn Estate with much scholarly insight into the work of Luther Lashmit, Arthur Graffin, J. Barton Benson, Northrop and O'Brien,  and Thomas Sears.

I hope you will all come to visit the Junior League Show House 

sponsored by Traditional Home. 

We are honored by an enviable roster of top designers. 

April 20th-May 5th

3301 Alamance Rd., Greensboro, North Carolina

Do not miss some of the wonderful events and opportunities to meed the designers. 

More Later!! 

The High Point Market is opening today!! 

If you are looking for furniture, lighting and accessories for 

your home, call us at 336-705-1316.