Bernhardt Design Reimagines Classic American Furniture for Its 125th Anniversary

For 125 years Bernhardt Furniture Company has been a family-owned operation crafting furniture in North Carolina. To celebrate this anniversary, Bernhardt Design (the younger, more modern branch of the company) commissioned three international designers to reimagine a few well-known staples of American furniture: the Windsor rocking chair, the courthouse chair, and the Chesterfield sofa. Photos have been clogging up Pinterest boards since the summer, but now they’re finally ready for your living room.

When John Mathias Bernhardt started his little furniture workshop in Lenoir, North Carolina in 1889, he did so by leveraging the abundance of local oak trees and skilled woodworkers. The furniture was exactly the sort of traditional joinery-work you’d expect from the days before the names Eames and Prouvé were being dropped over cocktails. With the One Hundred Twenty Five collection, the idea was to task thoroughly of-the-moment international designers to think about these old techniques and styles in a way that didn’t feel so stodgy. The results? Drool-worthy.