Metro

Legendary furniture designer Charles Pollock dies in Queens house fire

 A renowned but troubled furniture designer died today when a fire tore through his tiny, cluttered studio in Queens, authorities said.

Charles Pollock – an 83-year-old who created the famed Pollock Executive Chair – banged on the only door of his first-floor apartment on 157th Street in South Jamaica when the fire broke out about 7 a.m.

“I smelled the smoke and I heard banging upstairs,” said Mary Kayulu, 48, a home attendant who lived in the basement apartment below.

“I had my daughter take the key to Charlie’s apartment and told her to check on him. We heard him banging, but he wasn’t screaming. I’m thinking he couldn’t scream because of all the smoke. I’m so sad we couldn’t help him,” she said.

Her daughter Naomi Ebouki, 20, opened the door to Pollock’s apartment to try get him out, but the artist – who used a motorized wheelchair to get around – was already dead.

“There was a lot of smoke everywhere. I really couldn’t see anything,” Ebouki said. “Firefighters tried to go inside but it was too late. It’s shocking that he had to die this way. It’s very scary. ”

Pollock was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation, fire officials said.

“The fire itself wasn’t a large fire. It was a one-room fire but unfortunately the occupant wasn’t able to get out,” said Fire Chief Daniel Browne, of Division 13. “It’s not a good way to go.”

Neighbors said the two-story, wood-frame structure had been illegally subdivided into four rental units, and buildings officials were on the scene investigating after the blaze.

Pollock, a Michigan native who graduated from Pratt Institute, created the modernistic Executive Chair in 1963, cementing his reputation as one of the 20th centuries most important industrial designers.

The work is considered a masterpiece of furniture design that’s been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre in Paris and other prestigious venues.

Although he was back at work on a new design when he died, his career went through a heart-wrenching series of ups and downs in the decades since as he struggled with bi-polar disorder, friends and relatives said.

“I’m hysterical. He was here all last week, we had a beautiful weekend, we celebrated our anniversary. This is a shock to everyone,” said Sheryl Fratell of East 53rd Street, where Pollock lived when he wasn’t working and sometimes staying at his studio in Queens.

Fratell, Pollock’s partner for 27 years, said the pair would talk by phone every morning when he was away.

“He’d say ‘Oh, and by the way, did I tell you I love you today?’ And I’d laugh, and say “Oh, I love you Charles,’” she said. ”He was bigger than life. He loved people. He was handsome, talented and eccentric.”

Pollock’s former wife, Maud Nordwald-Pollock, 79, described a brilliant designer who was plagued by bi-polar disease that often made it difficult for him to work.

“Oh my God, that poor man, I loved him a lot and he was so talented,” said Maud Nordwald-Pollock, 79, of Hampton Bays, who was married to the designer from 1968 to 1980. “In a way, his time was up.”

Nordwald-Pollock said her ex was also a pioneer in freestyle skiing and windsurfing in the ‘60s.

“I used to call him ‘Surfboard Chuck. He made his own surfboards,” she said.

While his ex said Pollock’s demons made it difficult for him to work, he was busy creating new designs when he died, according to a visibly shaken Connie Smith, Pollock’s partner at Charles Pollock Design, who stopped by his studio after the fire.

“He was elderly, [but] we were still working on furniture today. He has paintings hanging that he just completed last week. His ideas went on and on. He’s a wonderful designer,” Smith said. “The Pollock Executive Chair is probably the best selling chair in the history of furniture design.”

She described her collaborator as not wealthy but hardly destitute.

“He just spent more than he earned. You know, things happen. His girlfriend said she can’t keep track of his money. He really enjoyed life, he just spent more than he earned,” Smith said

Jerry Helling, president of Bernhardt Design in North Carolina, had tracked Pollock down and together they created a new chair – the CP Lounge Chair – that was unveiled last year

Ebouki said Pollock loved talking about his work.

“He always spoke up about how he started designing chairs when he was in his 20s. He always told me if you want to pursue anything in life don’t ever give up,” she said.

Additional reporting by Daniel Prendergast

rfredericks@nypost.com