A hardwood furniture company that crafts custom beds, tables, kitchen cabinets and pretty much anything else a customer can think of is moving into Bethesda.
Hardwood Artisans, the Virginia-based company that has long had a store in Rockville’s Federal Plaza, will officially open April 2 at 4828 St. Elmo Ave. in Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle neighborhood.
Mark Gatterdam, one of the six craftsmen who took over ownership of the company in 2005 when the original owners retired, said operations at the Federal Plaza location will wind down by the time that store’s lease is up in June.
The company’s 43,000-square-foot shop and production facility is in Culpepper, Virginia, but it has long had a loyal customer base in Maryland, especially in Bethesda.
“I immediately knew this was the right spot,” Gatterdam said Tuesday during an interview in the new space, on the corner of St. Elmo and Norfolk avenues. “It’s not flashy. It’s old. It’s kind of mid-century modern. It’s got lots of glass. It’s not right in the hunt of where all the slick showrooms are, but you know, we’re not really slick here anyway.”
Gatterdam said the company pursued a location at Bethesda Row, a set of newer and more upscale retail properties elsewhere in downtown Bethesda, and considered a store in the 14th Street area in Washington, D.C.
The new Bethesda store will be open on a limited schedule before April 2.
Gatterdam said the company prides itself on sustainability. Wood scraps at the Culpepper shop are used to build Suzy Cubes, hollow cubes that can be used for many purposes, including serving as bookshelves or end tables. The roughly 12 yards of sawdust the craftsmen produce each week goes to a dairy farm, where it’s used as bedding and compost material.
Gatterdam said the company’s underlying principal is that any piece it makes “will last as long as it takes for the tree to grow back,” which, depending on the type of wood used, ranges from 80 to 120 years.
“We’re very well aware of where our wood comes from, how it’s getting harvested, the lumber companies that we work with,” Gatterdam said. Most of the wood comes from the Allegheny and Appalachian mountain regions, while some is sourced from Canada and Peru.
“We take a lot of time and energy with how we conduct our business,” Gatterdam said. “We were doing a lot of things that are sustainable and green long before they were in fashion.”
The company started in 1976 as The Loft Bed Store, but eventually grew to include a wide array of made-to-order furniture. A flier in the store proclaims the company will “build anything from real wood.”
A typical coffee table costs $1,000 and a fabric couch can cost $3,200. The company’s prices are on the high-end of furniture costs, but Gatterdam said the hand-crafted design and custom nature of all orders are worth the price. The company recently crafted and helped install a solid mahogany door on a home in Bethesda.
Gatterdam said the average customer visits three or four times before making a purchase, as employees walk them through the design and crafting process.
“There’s very little impulse buying going on here. There’s a lot of education that we give the customer,” Gatterdam said. “A lot of informing, a lot of giving them options, a lot of customizing, so it takes time. There are a lot of decisions to make.”
