Tom Stangeland China Hutch (Deruta majolica)
When we moved into our home in 1998, we decided to furnish our main floor with Arts & Crafts furniture. We saw Tom Stangeland‘s Greene & Greene dining room table (modeled on one in the Blacker House in Pasadena) at NW Fine Woodworking here in Seattle and this was (to quote Casablanca) the “beginning of a beautiful [creative] friendship.”
Tom Stangeland & Janis White
While we bought several of Tom’s “set” pieces, the most exciting part of our partnership involved asking Tom to make pieces he’d never made before. He’d never designed a sofa, so we sketched out a Chinese-influenced settle with pencil & paper. Lo & behold, it turned into the beautiful piece you see below.
As a wedding present, we bought Majolica dinnerware crafted by Ubaldo Grazia of Deruta, Italy. We needed to showcase these magnificent ceramic pieces so we decided we needed a China hutch. Tom researched an Arts & Crafts hutch, drew the design in pencil on a cardboard cutout, then placed it in the dining room space where the hutch was intended. This eventually became the amazing piece you’ll also see below.
Helberg mica fern lamp
Steve Helberg (509) 228-9342] of Eastern Washington created the beautiful reading lamp (which we helped him design for this space). Yes, it has a fern frond encased in mica sheets for the lamp “shade.” He is an amazing craftsman in copper, metals and wood.
The entry lockset is in the Eastlake Style, a late Victorian design style that anticipated the richly intricate geometric shapes of Art Deco. It is stamped with an 1885 patent which dates its manufacture to sometime after 1885.
Stangeland’s presidential suite at
the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel
If you love Arts & Crafts and Greene & Greene as much as we do, like magnificent craftsmanship, and need a new piece of furniture–do think of Tom (206 622 2004). By the way, Tom designed the furniture in two of the Arts & Crafts suites in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.
