Beverly furniture maker builds throne to Samuel McIntire
June 29th, 2007 Category FurniturePhil Lowe has received some pretty neat commissions during his 35 years as a furniture maker.
The Beverly resident made chairs for Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home in Springfield, Ill., desks for the Immigration Museum at Ellis Island and a Chippendale bed for the Derby House in Salem.
Last summer, though, his dream job fell into his lap, so to speak.
The Peabody Essex Museum commissioned Lowe to make six copies of a parlor chair carved by Samuel McIntire for its upcoming exhibit celebrating the 250th birthday of the Salem architect and carver. The replicas will be on display, along with two originals, in the parlor of the Peirce-Nichols House, which is being restored in conjunction with the exhibit.
“When this came up, of course I jumped at the chance,” Lowe said. “How often does someone come along and say, ‘Make this masterpiece’?”
Lowe, 59, has been an admirer of McIntire for more than 25 years, ever since he was commissioned to repair a shield-back chair carved by the famed Federalist period architect. He was so taken with the design that he adopted it as the logo for his furniture-making and restoration shop at 116 Water St., now the Furniture Institute of Massachusetts.
Over the years, Lowe has carved out a reputation for fine craftsmanship in his own right. He specializes in high-end, 18th-century-style furniture and charges clients anywhere between $1,500 for a ball and claw foot stool to $25,000 for a Chippendale bed. Students pay as much as $20,000 a year to study under him.
Given his expertise and local roots, Lowe was the natural candidate for the McIntire commission, said Dean Lahikainen, curator of the exhibit.
“I think he’s one of the most talented cabinet makers that I have encountered, and he’s done work for the museum for quite a few years now,” Lahikainen said. “Plus he’s local, just over the bridge.”
The museum owns three of the eight parlor chairs McIntire carved for the Peirce-Nichols House. The rest are scattered in museums across the country. One of the originals will be on display in the exhibit while the other two will remain in the parlor along with Lowe’s replicas.
McIntire, who lived from 1757 to 1811, borrowed the design for the chairs from a British pattern book. They feature a Gothic back carved with ribbons and bell flowers and turned, tapered legs. They’re made from Santo Domingan mahogany, now nearly extinct, and are upholstered in black-striped hair cloth, woven from the tail and mane of a horse.
Lowe began by tracing one of the original chairs to create an isometric sketch. He then ordered the wood - which costs a staggering $75 a foot - and cut it to dimension using a band saw. He hand-carved the central splats in an assembly-style line, using handmade tools.
The job took him 10 months.
“We, as furniture makers and carvers, we’re sometimes not really that much different than what we were back then,” Lowe said. “The trade has evolved to some degree, but there are certain things that haven’t changed. Carving is one of them.”
Lowe created a seventh chair as a backup, in case something happens to one of the others. He does this for every commission, he said, and it constitutes one of the perks of his job.
“This stuff certainly isn’t affordable to everybody,” he said. “The only way I can get something as nice as that is if I throw in an extra.”
Neither Lowe nor Lahikainen would disclose how much the museum paid for the chairs, but Lahikainen said they were worth the investment.
“They’re fabulous! Extremely accurate,” Lahikainen said. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to pick out which ones are new and which ones are old.”
Museumgoers will be able to decide for themselves when the McIntire exhibit opens Oct. 13.
