California furniture-makers Glenn Lawson and Grant Fenning are adamant that their classic-craftsman furniture be seen, felt and experienced up close before ending up in a customer’s home. And so far, that ethos has served them well. For decades, their brand, Lawson-Fenning, has enjoyed great success, endearing itself to customers with quality materials and high-spec fabrication. With their Pasadena headquarters and a busy Melrose Avenue flagship ticking along, expanding to New York was a logical next step, even as it ran contrary to the prevailing e-retailer trend.
In February, the new two-storey location opened in a classic 1910 commercial building in NoHo, with cast-iron accents and heavy footfall on Lafayette Street. Rather than undertake the interiors themselves, they anointed Josh Greene, a friend and neighbour from California with a bent for century-spanning chic and, similarly, his own line of furniture and textiles. Greene helped them pull off the not-undaunting task of reining in the lofty spaces to a more human scale, all 420 sq m of it.
Smaller, cosier, well-proportioned rooms within the space bring it closer to the look of a covetable magazine interior than a showroom. A prototype living room, kitchen and dining space are set up in the logical order of a family home; there’s even a bedroom and bathroom with niches for privacy. The materials, washes and stains were chosen for their midcentury connotations, as well as for their popularity today. Walnut, rust and ochres form the baseline, with olives and blues providing contrast. Everything is for sale.
To keep numbers up, management is planning a schedule of exhibitions and talks with makers of the ceramics, lighting and objets at the centre. Visitors should feel right at home.
