Masterpiece theater, Lancaster New Era November 10, 2005
Here’s your chance to see a collection of furniture that’s six years in the making
By Mary Beth Schweigert New Era Staff Writer
The Greatest Masterpieces in American furniture are scattered throughout the world’s finest museums and most prominent private collections.But right now, they’re under one roof.
Plenty of furniture fanatics aspire to own great antiques. But there’s one problem: Those priceless pieces reside at Monticello or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In other words, they’re not for sale. That’s where Irion Company Furniture Makers come in.
The Christiana craftsmen reproduce 18th-century American furniture down to the most intricate detail, even using handmade tools and 200-year-old wood.
In 1999, Irion embarked on its most ambitious project ever: replicating enough American masterpieces to furnish an entire estate.
The “Masterpiece Collection,” commissioned by a Pennsylvania gentleman, will include 80 to 100 Chippendale, Federal and Queen Anne-style pieces.
“It’s never been done before,” Irion co-owner Kendl Monn says. “No one has ever said, ‘Let’s reproduce the greatest pieces of American furniture.’
“It’s just a historic event.”
Now, six years into the project, Irion will show off the Masterpiece Collection in a Saturday open house, the furniture maker’s first in 15 years.
“The furniture we produce is more than a piece of furniture,” Monn says. “It’s an investment. It will be the antiques of tomorrow.”
Irion opened in 1977 as an antique-furniture restoration and conservation business. In 1989, the business moved from suburban Philadelphia to an old two-story Victorian hardware store in Christiana.
While dissecting damaged pieces for restoration, Irion craftsmen learned how to copy them.
“Irion was doing handmade furniture when everything was manufactured,” Monn says. “Machines can’t do what the hand can do.”
Monn, who’s been with Irion for 23 years, now co-owns the business with Richard Herzog, who heads the upholstery division.
Irion’s 15 craftsmen share their knowledge with new employees. More than skill, Monn hires based on a passion for fine furniture.
“I’m not here to teach (them) how to use a table saw,” Monn says. “We go way beyond that.”
Irion custom-makes furniture the 18th-century way, starting with handmade tools, which help precisely re-create details.
The craftsmen copy William & Mary, Queen Anne, Chippendale and Federal-style furniture, using traditional woods, like mahogany, cherry, maple, birch and walnut.
Irion often buys furniture just for its parts, salvaging 200-year-old wood from antique pieces that can’t be repaired.
A single craftsman hand-makes each piece, signing the completed creation.
“The 18th-century furniture and the way it was constructed is the reason it’s still around and it’s in museums,” Monn says. “This is quality.”
Prices range from $400 for a small mirror to $275,000 for a floor-to-ceiling bookcase – 10 percent of what the actual antique versions might cost, Monn estimates.
(Considering a period table just sold at auction for $6 million, that’s a substantial savings.)
A dining-room chair might take 125 hours to complete; a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, two years.
And no, Monn never gets tired of working on the same piece for so long. Making drawer bottoms can get a little mundane, but that’s only a day’s work.
“We come whistling to work every day,” Monn says. “We absolutely love what we do. We were born to do this.”
Irion began the Masterpiece Collection in 1999. The anonymous buyer will furnish his entire home with the collection, expected to be complete by 2008.
With help from museums and antique dealers, Irion drafted a list of the most sought-after American furniture masterpieces, then set about re-creating them.
Craftsmen have finished 75 of the pieces, for which the buyer will pay an undisclosed price.
The greatest challenge of this – or any – project, Monn says, is working with rare, valuable wood, which leaves little room for error.
“No two pieces of wood are the same,” he says. “They don’t make any more of that tree. You have to be very careful.”
A Philadelphia film company, Art in Motion, is documenting Irion’s work on the Masterpiece Collection.
The documentary will focus on traditional 18th furniture-making as a lost art, a skill that died out with the Industrial Revolution.
“Here’s our chance to make a place in history and preserve a dying art,” Monn says. “This is a unique thing.”
The documentary’s future is uncertain, but Monn says it could end up anywhere from PBS to the Sundance Film Festival.
Along with the finished masterpieces, open-house visitors will see Irion craftsmen at work.
And will the anonymous gentleman be there, scooping out the treasures that will soon inhabit his house?
Monn laughs. “No comment.”