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History See other History Articles Title: Heywood Wakefield Furniture Some of you fine visitors to our humble web site may be unfamiliar with Heywood-Wakefield furniture-and may be asking yourselves "Just what is this Heywood-Wakefield furniture? And why is it so danged popular?" Well, let's just take a brief stroll through the how's, why's and wherefore's of Heywood-Wakefield furniture... By the time Heywood-Wakefield introduced its "Heywood-Wakefield Modern" furniture line in the 1930's, the company had over 100 illustrious years of creating top quality furniture... Let's go back in time to the 1820's when a much younger America was suffering in the throes of the great seating famine. Seating was in such short supply, people had to stand for days on end. Thousands of weary settlers headed west just to look for a comfortable place to sit. Then, in 1826, a group of 5 brothers in Gardner, Massachusetts, full of vim, vigor and derring-do decided they'd had enough! Walter ("Dimples") Heywood, Levi ("Giggles") Heywood, Seth ("Grumpy") Heywood, William ("Sleepy") Heywood, and Benjamin ("Doc") Heywood began manufacturing simple chairs in a small barn. Suddenly, the seating famine had a solution, and Heywood Brothers began selling their chairs in ever increasing quantities. The business flourished and by the late 1800's the Heywood Brothers Company was producing a large variety of furniture. Along the way many other furniture concerns had been absorbed, but the biggest acquisition was Cyrus Wakefield's Wakefield Rattan Company. Initially more of a joint operation, the 2 firms imaginatively used the name: The Heywood Brothers and Wakefield, eventually shortening that moniker to the pithier Heywood-Wakefield Co. By the 1930's, the Heywood-Wakefield Furniture Co. was very successful, yet still mired in the past. Heywood-Wakefield knew the world was ready for modern furniture, if only someone would figure out what modern furniture would look like. Luckily, the local Kiwanis Club had a stellar group of designers: Russel Wright, Gilbert Rhode, W. Joseph Carr and the club's Count: Alexis J. Saknoffsky (a Kiwanis exchange member from Transylvania). This progressive group of designers decided that modern furniture would be solid birch, steam bent and blonde enough to shame Jean Harlow. Christened "The Heywood-Wakefield Modern Line," this philosophy was a peroxide epiphany of unprecedented modern proportion. In this golden age (1936-1966) America turned blonde, filling all the best homes with the bubbly boost of birch. Various lines were introduced; the very names of which ("Sculptura", "Crescendo", "Kohinoor") evoke a shimmering time. Aesthetics, beauty and creativity combined with quality to create a symphony of style... Sadly, even the most beautiful of symphonies must end, and the Heywood-Wakefield Company wrote the last coda for this line in 1966. And the demanded encore never came-until now and until Springdale. Here at Springdale we have created a home where the Heywood-Wakefield symphony never ends. Our virtuoso restorative team performs note perfect restoration of the designers' original score. So at last, true Heywood-Wakefield devotees can savor the sweet music of Heywood-Wakefield's everlasting encore. Poster Comment: If you can find any of their furniture, say at a thrift store, for a cheap price, buy it.
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