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Passion for period furniture created a brotherhood of joiners

by Jonathan Brinzen

(photos except where noted:author)

Irion Company Furniture Makers is 17 going on several hundred. Walk into the shop, and you can feel a direct connection with the roots of American furniture. Patterns, samples, templates and story boards hanging from the walls and rafters spell out the aesthetic of the 18th century. Half-made highboys, tea tables, secretaries, beds and chairs fill the first floor bench room. The furniture is made with scrupulous fidelity to the original, and the wood it's made from is extraordinary. But what's most striking is the brio with which the furniture is made, the complete immersion of the craftsmen in their work. "Making 18th century furniture is a real charm. A labor of love," said Kendl Monn, nine years at Irion. "We've been lucky - we've grown slowly and ended up with the people who really live this stuff."

Irion's broad range is evident in the prep room - At one end of the room is a Chester County highboy in tiger maple, a mahogany Chippendale corner chair and samples of bedposts