In the early 1980s, I moved my shop back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire after spending the previous two years in Boston working as a cabinetmaker for H. Sacks and Sons. They had been in the business of making fine antique reproductions for over a century, but taste changed and the market for this fine craft was dwindling. The Sacks Brothers found that they could no longer sustain their overhead and the aged European Furniture makers in their employ, so they disassembled their factory. I had learned from these older men, and had made many period chairs under their tutelage over the years. As I was the only young employee when they broke up the business, I was given many antique templates, patterns and molds so I could carry on the tradition. I still have them.
This client was a patron of the North Bennett Street Furniture Program of which I was a graduate, and would periodically place orders. I was granted this commission, and proceded to use some of the newly acquired patterns and templates to build authentic reproduction Queen Anne chairs. He was pleased, and also ordered two Chippendale armchairs.
