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Depending on who is reading this blog, some people may know what Heywood-Wakefield furniture is and some may have no clue. That's okay. I didn't have a clue until about a year ago. I know! Shocking. (I let you in on a little secret... Designer's don't know everything. Shh... I'm not one to gossip and you didn't hear it from me.)

So Heywood-Wakefield make furniture. The coolest furniture in the 40s and 50s. Really. The company started in 1826. Think about that. 1826 was the year that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, on the same day, July 4th. So, the company was started in 1826 by five brothers; Walter, Levi, Seth, Benjamin and William. They started their company by making chairs in Gardner, Massachusetts in a barn.

Their company started kicking butt and taking names. They created some technology to make everything better. They also created other pieces of furniture to go along with their chairs. Then they joined forces with the Wakefield Rattan Company. First they called themselves The Heywood Brothers and Wakefield but shortened it down to what we know it as: Heywood-Wakefield Company.

So these homeboys are really getting their groove on. They are making furniture and making dollars. Cool, but not. It's the 1930s and their furniture isn't as cool and the gang as it once was. They knew they needed to make some modern furniture, but at that time who was to say what in the world was modern furniture? There was no Psychic Friends Network at that time for these guys to call.

They found some hep cats to help design the future at the Kiwanis Club. I know! Who would think that all the help cats were hanging at the Kiwanis Club? Anyhow, they found Russell Wright, Gilbert Rohde, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, Leo Jiranek. These fellas were all about streamlined design and knew that quality furniture could be made in mass on a production line.

So with all the heppest cats in town working together they create the "The Heywood-Wakefield Modern Line". The guys said we want round corners, nothing on the table tops, and use some light hardwood and simple lines, don't forget the simple lines.

Birch furniture was coming out of their factory big time and people were eating it up like a coke head doing their next line. Can't get enough. You weren't the bees knee's unless your home had some Heywood-Wakefield in it. You would sadly be known as that pitiful fellow who simply wouldn't know good design if it bit him in the behind.

All was fine and dandy until... you guessed it. It wasn't cool anymore. Like wearing a tuxedo t-shirt to the prom, they fell out of favor with the buying public in the late sixties. In 1980 the company went bankrupt. *insert tears* In 1994 South Beach purchased the name and logo and has brought the furniture back to life.

Now, there are people out there, and you may be one of them, who goes to thrift shops looking for this furniture. You hope the poor schlubs at the thrift shop have no idea what they have in their store and you will score on it with the $5 price tag. These people are very addicted to owning, restoring and reselling this furniture. It has become an obsession. You might get obsessed too, after your first purchase of some Heywood-Wakefield furniture.