SHELBURNE — Woodworking artist Timothy Coleman has won awards for his custom-designed furniture and, four years ago, recreated “missing” dining room and library tables for a historic Buffalo, N.Y., home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
But since then, Coleman has been thinking “French Provincial,” as he recreates 13 pieces of furniture for the President Dwight D. Eisenhower home in Gettysburg, Pa.
The Eisenhower National Historic Site, adjoining the Gettysburg Battlefield, “was the first permanent home Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower ever had together — in their 60s,” explained Coleman, who has already finished eight pieces of furniture for a room in this museum.
He explained that the Eisenhowers moved a lot during the five-star general’s Army career. “Gettysburg was a special place for Eisenhower,” says Coleman. And so, after World War II, when Eisenhower taught at Columbia University, he and Mamie bought this farm home, about 70 miles from Washington, D.C. During his eight years as president, the farm served as a weekend retreat and a meeting place for world leaders, according to the Eisenhower National Historic Site website.
“With its peaceful setting and view of South Mountain, it was a much needed respite from Washington and a backdrop for efforts to reduce Cold War tensions.”
“It was a really big deal when they bought this house,” said Coleman. He said the Eisenhowers even continued to raise show cows on the farm — although the Eisenhower name wasn’t attached to the cows, “everyone knew whose they were,” Coleman remarked.
“At some point in time, the Eisenhower family gifted the house and land to the National Park Service. Much of the furnishings did remain in the house, but this room was vacant. But they had photos of this room.”
Coleman described the furnishings of the Eisenhower home as “very eclectic,” with Eisenhower, who grew up in Kansas, preferring the most casual settings. “He loved to sit on a screened-in porch on the second floor and do business with heads of state,” Coleman remarked.
The particular bedroom for which Coleman has been making furniture was furnished by Mamie Eisenhower’s mother, who stayed in it during her visits.
At first, conservators didn’t know the whereabouts of the original furniture, so Coleman had to go by a black-and-white photograph of the room.
But when the National Park Service located the original furniture in the New York apartment of an Eisenhower descendent, Coleman was given permission to study and design from the original pieces.
“Part of the job was to provide measured, full-size drawings of the pieces,” he explained. “It was 18th-century French Provincial style, painted with very detailed carving,” he said. “These were high-end pieces, but not the epitome of the finest furniture you could buy at the time. They were probably replica pieces of finer furnishings, made in the 1920s or 1930s.”
Until Coleman had replicated several pieces, the room had been closed to the public. But the room is now open, with replications that Coleman made of the bed, two bedside cabinets, a bookcase, a vanity table with a triple mirror and long chest of drawers.
Two chairs that Coleman has made are being caned by Sandy Sherman of Southern Vermont, and when they and the table in Coleman’s shop are taken to Gettysburg, Coleman will have four more upholstered furnishings to make before the “guest room” in the Eisenhower home is complete.
The sidetable in Coleman’s Shelburne Center workshop is light gray, with a round, granite top and slender fluted legs. Coleman matched the color to the original and created molds for the floral ornamentation and for the “lambstooth” ornamental edging around the granite tabletop.
But the piece won’t be finished until Coleman has “aged” it by giving it a wash in a slightly darker hue, so that the carved recesses will darken, as they would have done over decades of use.
This painted-wood, decorative style of furnishing is a far cry from Coleman’s own originals, of natural wood with lace-like insets of carved wood of another shade. Coleman, a member of the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association, once told The Recorder he likes his work “to straddle the line between furniture and sculpture.”
A winner of a $7,500 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in 2011, Coleman is also a contributor to Fine Woodworking magazine. He has an article in the April 2016 edition on piece-carved door panels.
When asked what he learned by doing the French Provincial pieces, Coleman said, “There are aspects to the carving I will probably do something with. It certainly improved my carving skills.”
You can reach Diane Broncaccio at:
dbroncaccio@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 277