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Pelican Table, Mahogany with Glass Top Tierra Verde, Florida

When regular clients decided to purchase an adjacent lot and expand their Florida home, I was called in as a consulting designer from the beginning of the architectural discussions. The new wing was to encompass a 'Great Room' to accommodate extensive entertaining. We were able to design and build architectural windows and doors, a bar kitchen, stairwell and furnishings for this room.

Among the small pleasures of this space is this coffee table, which is centered in the large space and surrounded by four matching couches. The property as a whole, and this room in particular, overlooks an adjacent bird sanctuary, and the avian population inspired several aspects of this project. In this case, we chose the ever-present pelican as the theme. Typically they sit patiently on posts overlooking the water to spot their dinner swimming by. The base of this table celebrates these birds, as four of them sit overlooking a hand woven rug made to simulate a carp pond.

In approaching this project, I called upon an old friend and bird carver, Fred Dolan of Strafford, New Hampshire. Fred has been recognized by the Smithsonian as a major American craftsman, and exhibited at the museum in Washington, DC. Fred helped me block out the massing and proportions of the four birds supporting the glass-top table, then I refined the details based on observation and stylization. The pelican's feet rest on a ring of mahogany that encircles the 'pool' below, and anchors the birds to the structure as a whole.