December promises to be a big month for 20th-century furniture and decorative arts at fairs, auctions, exhibitions and events around the country. There is even a floating art gallery involved.

Twentieth-century work will be featured on the SeaFair, a new, 228-foot, $40 million yacht designed to accommodate 26 art and antiques galleries from all over the world. The ship is docked at the Miami Beach Marina today through Dec. 9, with its own alternative to Art Basel Miami Beach. (Information on the yacht: expoships.com).

In New York, Antiques & Art at the Armory, a fair at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street, continues through Monday. At least six dealers are showing 20th-century works, including Jacques de Vos from Paris (specializing in Art Deco) and Jeffrey F. Purtell (vintage Steuben glass).

In from California, the Santa Barbara gallery Europa is displaying a red leather PK20 chair by the Danish architect Poul Kjaerholm (1929-1980), who is the subject of a new book: “The Furniture of Poul Kjaerholm: Catalogue Raisonné” (Gregory R. Miller & Company), by Michael Sheridan, an American architect and authority on Kjaerholm. While Fritz Hansen continues to manufacture Kjaerholm designs in Denmark, vintage pieces are more popular than ever. There will be two exhibitions on Kjaerholm, both opening on Dec. 15 in New York, at R 20th Century (82 Franklin Street in TriBeCa) and Sean Kelly Gallery (528 West 29th Street in Chelsea). Read more »

The furniture industry is very important in Adams County and, more specifically, in Berne. The city is known as the furniture capital of Indiana.

But just who came up with that title?

According to Connie Potter, executive director of the Berne Chamber of Commerce, an employee of one of the four original furniture factories noticed that for a town the size of Berne, there was a lot of furniture being made and decided to call the city the furniture capital of Indiana.

“It’s pretty much a self-proclaimed thing, but nobody’s ever disputed it,” Potter said. “I guess you could just say it fits.”

At one time, Berne was home to four furniture factories and three furniture stores. The four factories were Dunbar Furniture Co., Berne Furniture, Smith Brothers of Berne and Swiss City Furniture. Read more »

When Jerry Helling sees retailers offering a five-piece matched living room “suite” of furniture, he feels a little depressed. “As they say down here in Carolina, it jes’ ain’t right,” he says, affecting a disheartened Southern drawl. “You shouldn’t go in and buy a whole roomful of furniture.”

That might seem an odd thing for a furniture maker to say. But Helling, creative director of Bernhardt Design, the cutting-edge, design-driven division of the venerable North Carolina firm, loves furniture too much to see it purchased like a Happy Meal (NYSE:MCD). “These mega-lifestyle collections don’t represent true, long-lasting design,” he says. “They’re paint-by-number solutions.”

Helling would like to see Americans approach the task more like Europeans do: shopping carefully for individual pieces, assembling them in a way that reflects their style, and keeping them for a good long time. And he’s going to help us. At the 2007 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, Bernhardt is set to debut the Global Edition, a line of furniture expressly created to stand the test of time. Read more »

The 19th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair May 19-22, 2007 will transform New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center into the global haven for design devotees.

North America’s singular showcase for contemporary design, the Fair draws the most intrepid seekers of design truth and design trends to an extraordinary exhibition of the most inspired models of design on the forefront, as well as thought-provoking programs and a schedule of supplementary exhibits and features.

During the Fair’s four days, 145,000 net square feet (14,500 net square meters) of the Javits Center will bustle with more than 23,000 interior designers, architects, retailers, designers, manufacturers, representatives, distributors, and developers. Members of the general public are welcome on Tuesday, May 22 when the ICFF is open to all comers. Read more »

It’s rare that I end up ahead of a trend, but that was the case six years ago when I embarked on a frustrating search for a particular sort of cabinet for a corner of my open kitchen/dining room.

What I needed was a place to serve guests drinks that wasn’t my kitchen counter. I envisioned a sort of hutch where I could stow liquor and wine bottles behind closed doors, and that also had shelves for glassware and a generous work surface for mixing a Cosmo, pouring some cabernet or parking an ice bucket.

I didn’t know at the time that what I was looking for was a bar cabinet, a home-furnishings category that had all but disappeared since its heyday during the art deco era.

But, oh, what a difference a few years can make. Bar and wine cabinets of every style are easy to find these days. And they’re not only handsome, they’re high on function as well. Read more »

Rick Stucky and Steve Stucky spent most of their childhood at Stucky Furniture Store in Monroe. Unpacking furniture, loading furniture to be delivered, and assisting other family members in running the business was a way of life for them.

“It was almost like our family lived here,” said Rick. “I can remember when Ira and Jake and other Stucky family members used to come in and sit around and visit with grandpa. We liked to stand around to listen to their stories. “As we got older, grandpa taught us how to put furniture together. We lived here most of the time,” noted Stucky. Read more »

There is little mystery why Pennsylvania liquor consumers would head to Delaware to lift their holiday spirits. A quick survey of those emptying carts of booze from outlet stores like Tri-State Liquors and Total Wine & More.

Those getting into cars with Pennsylvania tags revealed two basic answers: Price and selection.

This article is the third in a series. Read more »

A business plan born in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is finally poised to pay off for two northeast Indiana men.

Joel Fremion, a local artist and gallery owner for 30 years, remembers the time almost five years ago as desperate days. After the general panic and uncertainty died down, he was left wondering how he’d make a living. The market for art had gone “downhill fast.”

So Fremion and Raymond New – a furniture maker who shares his admiration for Dunbar Co.-built furniture – decided to launch a business partnership based on both replicating and reinterpreting the Modern style furniture pieces originally produced in Berne from 1945 to 1965. They founded Indiana for Modern in 2003. Read more »

Economic incentives are expected to help keep a Lansing office furniture company in the area and add new jobs.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and Smart Office Systems President Paul Covert said Monday that the company will open a new corporate headquarters near Capital City Airport in Lansing. Smart Office Systems’ main office currently is at 2110 S. Washington St. Read more »

Furniture maker Smith Brothers of Berne Inc. is buying a former auto parts plant and will turn it into a new production center, creating more than 100 new jobs.

The purchase of the former Berne Tube auto parts plant, about two blocks from Smith Brothers’ Berne factory, increases the furniture maker’s 175,000-square-foot operations by almost 40 percent, said Bill Reiman, vice president of operations.

The former auto parts plant about 30 miles south of Fort Wayne was vacated last summer when Berne Tube’s parent company consolidated by shifting the Berne operations and 50 workers to a Portland, Ind., plant. Read more »