MAKER / Charak Furniture Co.

Charak Furniture Company

If you've never heard the name Charak, you're in good company — and you're about to be charmed.

The company was founded in Boston in 1919, and for nearly seven decades produced some of the most faithful reproductions of 18th-century American furniture you'll find — Queen Anne and Georgian pieces, secretaries and dressers and cabinets dressed up with carved finials, recessed door panels, claw feet, the works.

The 1920s were the company's golden stretch. Then the Depression arrived and quietly took most of their competitors out at the knees. Charak didn't just survive it — during the 1930s they introduced one of their most beloved pieces, the drop-leaf Danbury dining table. That's the kind of stubborn craftsmanship that earns a brand a long life.

And then, in the 1950s, they surprised everyone by going modern — collaborating with designers like Tommi Parzinger and Donald Deskey. A house that could do both, and do both beautifully.