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…..”Look here,” he said suddenly, “I’m tired of hearing you talk about building your cottage and establishing your industries. Why not have some action? I’ll start the ball rolling myself. Would you really like to build your cottage here, on this very spot?”

The four women assured him that they had meant every word they had said.
“Very good,” said Mr. Roosevelt. …….

Mr. Roosevelt listened to their disappointment as bid after bid for the contracting was at least five thousand dollars more than they had planned to spend. Once more he came to their rescue.

“I’ll build your house for five thousand dollars less than your lowest bid,” he told them one night.

“What do you mean?” they asked incredulous.

“I’ll undertake the contract for building the cottage,” he explained, “just as any contractor would undertake it. I’ll hire the workmen, buy the materials and see that the house is finished in time.”
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Five thousand dollars saved seemed too good to be true, so the four women made it very clear to their new contractor that every detail of the plans and specifications should be carried out.

Before the cottage was finished, they had decided on the industry which they would bring back to life. They would make furniture in the same way that the famous old cabinet makers had made it.

Construction was hurried on the shop at the back of the cottage, and the search for workmen who would work for the joy of craftsmanship, rather than for the speed of production, was started.

That this venture into reproduction of old furniture is no idle fancy, to be dropped when there is something more interesting and less exciting at hand, is shown by the fact that it has steadily grown in the three years since it was opened---three years which have seen all four women deeply interested in a presidential campaign and in a campaign which put Mr. Roosevelt into the Executive Mansion in Albany. Mrs. Roosevelt is still actively interested in the shop, even though she is the first lady of the state, and is teaching in a school in New York City besides.

It was at this school, during a period when she did not happen to be teaching, that Mrs. Roosevelt told me about the shop at Val-Kill. Her office was a tiny cube, just big enough to hold her desk and that of her secretary’s, and an extra chair for visitors, not the trappings which one would expect to find surrounding the wife of the governor of New York. But Mrs. Roosevelt belongs to the newer generation of women, who are workers in their own right, in addition to performing those duties of hostess which are inseparable with public life.

It was the size of the Mayflower which had a great deal to do with the selection of furniture reproduction as the industry at the Val-Kill cottage.

“I had always been interested in starting some American industry or other,” Mrs. Roosevelt explained, “which would employ the men and women of the countryside and would bring back the old tradition of workmanship of a hundred years ago, and the reproduction of old furniture seemed the logical place for us to begin.

“of course, reproductions, no matter how well done they are, can never take the place of real antiques, of the cherished pieces of furniture which have been handed down in a family from generation to generation, and which have become a very integral part of the life of that family. But unfortunately, the Mayflower was a very small boat, and as much as we all might wish to furnish our houses with its cargo, very few of us are fortunate enough to own chairs or tables which came with the Pilgrim Fathers.

“There are other sources of old furniture, of course, besides the Mayflower, but these are limited, and as the years go on, they will become more and more limited. Already the old barns and attics have yielded up most of their treasures, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find antiques that are genuine and beautiful.

“A great many of the loveliest old pieces are in the museums, anyway, and will never be available for everyday use. Then, many of the old pieces were designed for living conditions which no longer exist. We do not have the space to put many a beautiful old sideboard or a massive table which was planned for use in days when houses were large and square feet were not at a premium.

“Yet the tradition of beauty which old American furniture tells is one which should be passed on to future generations of Americans. Children should grow up in an atmosphere of the very best which has been developed in America, and should be so surrounded by what is beautiful and sound construction that without realizing it they will develop an impeccable taste and discrimination.

“If there were enough antiques to supply the demand for them, the problem would be solved, but there are pitifully few remnants of the days of our best American craftsmen in proportion to the number of houses and apartments which folks like to have filled with them. Obviously, the next best thing is to try to reproduce the work of the early cabinet makers, and to carry on not only their designs but their thoroughness of construction and their joy in turning out individual works of art.

“Our shop at Val-Kill is trying to do its part of this handing down of a fine old tradition in cabinetmaking.”

Mrs. Roosevelt told of how difficult it was at first to instill into their minds of the workmen that what was expected of them was craftsmanship, not speed.

“Even though we selected our workmen for their artistic leanings as well as their technical ability,” she explained, “they could not understand, at first, that we did not want the furniture slapped together any old way in order to get it finished. They were so used to rushing through with a job, using the methods of joining and finishing which would give quick though not always lasting results, that it seemed incredible that anything else could be asked of them in this age of factory production.

“But once they realized that what we wanted was the very best cabinet making of which they were capable, they swung into the spirit if the undertaking, and now they take a genuine pride in turning out a beautiful piece of work.”

In the three years since the starting of the Val-Kill shop the number of workmen has increased from one to eight, and at the present time that number is being doubled. But each one is picked with great care to be sure that he is possessed of the right qualities of craftsmanship.

“Eventually we plan to have a school for craftsmen at Val-Kill,” Mrs. Roosevelt explained, where the young boys and girls of the neighborhood can learn cabinetmaking or weaving, and where they can find employment, rather than have to go to the city to work.”

There is no limit to the possibilities for design.

“Most of our copies are made from museum pieces,” Mrs. Roosevelt continued, “many from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Charles Cornelius has helped us a great deal in selecting the furniture to reproduce, and is giving us access to it so that our plans could be drawn up. Morris Schwartz has also been of inestimable assistance to us.

“Whenever anyone wants anything of her own copied, we are always glad to do it, for it usually means that another design is added to our repertory.”

When I asked Mrs. Roosevelt if any of her own family furniture has been used as models, she shook her head and smiled.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “a great part of the Roosevelt furniture belongs to the period of the Civil Was, which is not particularly inspiring. Mr. Roosevelt’s mother, however, has some Queen Anne chairs which we are planning to copy some time.”

Much of the work up to date has been done in maple, walnut, oak, and pine.

“We try to follow as closely as possible the original woods which were used in a particular period. When our designs are those which were first made in oak, or in maple, our reproductions are in these same woods, although a customer could order them in any other wood.

“The wood itself? Most of it is furnished by a lumber company which selects wood of beautiful grain, thoroughly seasoned. So far, we have not used much old wood, because we want this furniture of ours to be the heirlooms of the future, and to last as the old American and English furniture is lasting.

“If a customer specifies old wood, or any type of wood, we try our best to supply it. One woman asked us to make her a set of furniture out of the wood from some of the trees on her estate. They will have to be cut down, sawed into boards, and then aged for the proper amount of time before we can use them, but to her this furniture will have an unusual sentimental value.”

Mrs. Roosevelt has found many pieces of furniture can be adapted for modern production. Flat-topped desks and filing cabinets are necessities of modern furniture, but few of them have been designed with an eye to beauty.

Sometimes the adaptation takes the form of a change in the size of the furniture. Beds are lower, and twin beds are designed from old full-sized models.

Tables are made smaller, so that they will be the right size for modern apartments, desks and chests of drawers are fitted with equipment suitable for modern needs.

“Nests of little tea tables are another adaptation which we have made of old designs. Another modernization is a drop-leaf table which is so narrow when folded that it can be slipped back of a door, waiting for the emergency for which it was planned.”

This adaption of old designs and old workmanship to the needs of a more cramped world, Mrs. Roosevelt feels, is one of the chief reasons for a project such as hers; that and the desire to perpetuate the craftsmanship itself. Divans with modern soft, luxurious cushions can have the restrained beauty of a hard chimney seat of more austere times. Filing cabinets, they prove, can become things of beauty, and chairs and tables can be of the right size for modern needs.

But why reproduce old furniture? Why not put the same craftsmanship into modernistic chairs and tables?

Mrs. Roosevelt answered this.
“We might have made modernistic furniture,” she said, “but we did not feel that it had the livableness of the old designs. Some of the modern pieces are really very beautiful, and the fabrics are exquisite, but to me they do not have the feeling or comfort and hospitality which the old furniture has. Modern furniture, so far, seems to lack the inevitable rightness of the time-tested favorites which have been used for generation after generation, through changing conditions, and appreciated by each.”

The stone cottage at Val-Kill is furnished with the products of the shop behind it, and besides being a haven for the four women in the summer, it is the demonstration house for the furniture itself.

Plans for the future of Val-Kill include other industries.

“We have already had a little start in weaving.” Mrs. Roosevelt explained. “We have a weaving teacher who has classes for the girls in the neighborhood, and we have started a little hooked rug making. Gradually we want to expand this into as important a department as that of the furniture, for there are as many originalities in the old American weaving and the old American rug making as there are in the old American furniture> Wrought iron work and silver work also come into our plans for the future. We hope to make Val-Kill the center for a revival of all of the old industries which were carried out in its very hills.”

Mrs. Roosevelt and her associates are afraid that, without some such project as theirs, the knowledge of the old colonial crafts will be smothered in the rush for mass production.

“Workers are being trained now to get quick results, rather than beautiful ones. Take the matter of joints in furniture, for instance. Most modern furniture is put together with glue and dowels, instead of with the time tried mortise and tenon joints.

“It takes longer to make a mortise and tenon joint, but it also takes longer to break one. Changes in temperature and humidity do not have the same effect upon them as they have upon glue, which is the main reason why there are still as many antiques in existence as there are. Had they been made under the ordinary modern factory conditions they would long ago have fallen apart, instead of being sturdy and seemingly imperishable.

“Of course, we are hoping that our furniture will be heirlooms of the future, and will play an important part in relaying to generations to come the restraint and beauty and livableness of the designs of the old cabinet makers.

“Where we feel that modern methods will mean an improvement, we use them. Although our workmen have come to scorn the machine-like precision of paint spraying, the finishes which we use are the outcome of modern scientific research. We have our laboratory in which we experiment with various stains. Then after we have found just which stain enhances the beauty of the wood without obscuring the grain, the wood is treated and rubbed, and treated again until it has a beautiful, soft luster undreamed of even by some of the old craftsmen.

“We try to put back into into the wood the acids which are already a part of the wood and which give it its characteristic coloring. With maple we use permanganate of potash, because it is this chemical which imparts to maple that peculiar golden brown which is a great part of its charm. By adding this same chemical we deepen the natural beauty of the wood, and bring out even more clearly the pattern of the grain.”

It is rather pertinent that the project which has so much occupied the time and energy of these four modern women should have been concerned with home making. Although the wife of the governor of the largest and busiest state in the Union has chosen to divide her time between her business activities and her official duties , she has gone in for two occupations which have been woman’s from time immemorial, those of teaching and home building.

She is an experiment of the new tradition, but she does not throw away the old traditions of hospitality and home making. Rather she adapts them to modern life and modern conditions, just as the workmen at her Val-Kill shop have adapted the old designs of furniture to modern apartment life.