BDDW
Humble roots: BDDW founder Tyler Hays moved to New York when he was 25 to be a painter and a sculptor — but wound up working as a carpenter. His line of dining and occasional tables and beds is crafted from American woods; his upholstered furniture has a following with designers like Ralph Lauren.
New York and beyond: Hays opened the first BDDW on Freeman’s Alley in 1998 and then relocated to a 7,000-square-foot space on Crosby Street in 2002. Today, BDDW pieces are made in the firm’s Philadelphia workshop. “It’s commutable and allows us to be creative,” Hays says.
Material world:“You can’t beat leather and wood, stone and metal — materials that last hundreds of years,” says Hays. His aim is not to make furniture “too perfect.”
Must buy: Ping-pong/dining table with removable leather net, $13,000; paddles and leather case, $700. bddw.com
Uhuru Design
Garbage to greatness:Owners Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf’s first furniture lines were based on dumpster-diving expeditions in Red Hook, Brooklyn. “We didn’t have the money to purchase materials,” says Horvath. And just as the neighborhood has transitioned from a blue-collar, crime-ridden area to a modern artistic playground, Uhuru Design has also had a rags-to-riches transformation.
Offbeat sources: These days, the duo — who work from a former ship-repair factory in Red Hook — source sustainably harvested wood from equally unique places: from bourbon barrels to a Coney Island boardwalk to the deck of the battleship USS North Carolina.
Proudest moment: Uhuru designed furniture for the lobby of Manhattan’s New Museum and have pieces in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian. They also designed two lines for ABC Home’s DNA collection.
Must buy: Anchored by a steel base, the Claro walnut dining table is crafted with wood from a felled tree that was milled into boards in Pennsylvania. From $18,500. uhurudesign.com
Bone Simple Design
Bright star: Design enthusiasts in search of extraordinary lighting for hotels, restaurants and residences turn to Long Island City’s Bone Simple Design, which incorporates fabric, metal, rope and blown glass into its creations. Bone Simple has been doing custom lighting for more than a decade, and everything is fabricated locally.
Lightbulb moment: When owner Chad Jacobs went to his first ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) to show his occasional tables, he whipped together some last-minute lighting fixtures — simple mount sconces with a Japanese sensibility. “Everyone kept asking about the lighting,” he says. “So I shifted my design focus.”
Big projects: Bone Simple is creating fabric-covered lampshades in cream, white and gray linen for a Deborah Berke Partners-designed house in the Hamptons, and recently finished a project using cut-crystal pendants and sculptural blown-glass fixtures for an apartment on Park Avenue by Bradley Stephens at Stephens Design Group. The firm is also working on several residential projects in the city with Eve Robinson Associates.
Must buy:The Suspended Cylinder Chandelier, $6,200, in satin brass with linen shades. Other finishes and fabrics are also available. bonesimple.com
Dmitriy & Co.
All in the family: Back in the 1980s, David Feldman opened an antiques and custom furniture showroom that built on the spirit of his Russian-born grandfather’s humble Lower East Side upholstery business. Some two decades later Feldman and his wife, Donna, branched out further and launched Dmitriy & Co., a working design studio and by-appointment-only showroom in Chelsea, in 2011. Specializing in handcrafted sofas, the company, set in a West 25th Street loft, invites potential buyers to indulge in a “sitting experience.” “We ask, how will the sofa be used? Is it for reading books, watching TV or for playing chess?” says Donna.
Bespoke details: “We equate what we do to making a bespoke suit,” says Donna, describing the process of painstakingly hand-tying each coil spring and filling upholstered furniture with horsehair padding. Subtle, time-consuming decorative details include hand-sewn thin welts, top-stitched seams and pleating; Belgian hand-dyed linen and Loro Piana cashmere are the materials used. “These pieces are made to last,” she adds.
Major pedigree: The firm’s design world-heavy client list includes Robert A.M. Stern, Studio Sofield and McAlpine Booth & Ferrier, not to mention “private decorators with very private clients,” says Donna. The firm is also working on residential projects in Tel Aviv, New York and Miami.
Must buy:The Dmitriy Daybed is more than 8 feet long and is upholstered in Belgian linen with a walnut base. From $11,600. dmitriyco.com
Token
Student days: Will Kavesh and Emrys Berkower met at Alfred University, in Western New York. “We started designing glass together and then we kept the conversation going for 20 years,” says Kavesh, who moved to New York in 2000 on a university fellowship to research and teach the use of robotic systems in digital art. Eventually, he began designing furniture for interior designers. Berkower worked as a glass artist, focusing on modern adaptations of 17th-century Italian techniques and mid-century design.
In demand: Kavesh and Berkower started Brooklyn-based Token in 2007, making handcrafted furniture and lighting for architects and designers such as David Rockwell and Gensler. Kavesh says their work is a “contemporary interpretation of high modernism.” Currently, Token is expanding their line of popular hand-cut veneer casework. They are also working on a range of blown-glass lighting, called “POLY POP.” The firm has also designed for restaurants and hotels, including Las Vegas’ Aria Resort, and created pieces for Corcoran’s Brooklyn Heights office.
Source of inspiration: Token gets stimulation from natural and man-made structures. “Norman Foster’s Hearst [Tower] is a classic. It’s focused on sustainability, but also on aesthetic decision-making in a way I really identify with,” says Kavesh.
Dream project: “I would love to do a commission at New York’s UN building,” adds Kavesh.
Must buy: The ’50s-styled Token Lounge chair, $3,095; ottoman, $975. tokennyc.com
