Travel Getaways
Furniture just like the Colonists used, only new
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, November 23, 2008

This piece of furniture, made from oak and pine, with decorative red and black applied moldings and wooden turned drawer pulls, is not an antique. It’s a brand new reproduction of a chest made in Plymouth Colony between 1660 and 1700.
AP / Lisa Poole
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — It’s a handcrafted wooden chest with two rows of side-by-side drawers, a type found in 17th-century New England. But it’s not an antique. It’s a brand new reproduction of a chest made in Plymouth Colony between 1660 and 1700. The artisan who made it, Peter Follansbee, works at Plimoth Plantation. “Peter’s work is a real lost art, rediscovered,” said Plimoth Plantation spokeswoman Jennifer Monac. “He makes about 20 pieces per year, including specialty boxes, chests, chairs, cupboards, etc. Boxes can start at $800 and go from there. Chests start at $5,000 and up.”
Follansbee said the chest, one of several pieces of furniture on display just outside the entrance to the gift shop at Plimoth Plantation in the Craft Center, took a month to make. To get the designs, he said, “I study original pieces in various museums and private collections.”
Details at (508) 746-1622, ext. 8214, or http://www.plimoth.org.
A number of other historic attractions and living history sites also offer reproduction antiques.
Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg offers about 40 Colonial furniture reproductions, made by various companies, in its Williamsburg Reserve Collection. They include a four-poster bed with a headboard and ornately carved bedposts that stands nearly 5 feet tall. Called the Carter’s Grove Bed, it’s based on a piece from an 18th-century plantation ($6,241). Also from Williamsburg: a late Baroque-style walnut armchair based on a 1740s design from Pennsylvania, with a raspberry damask seat and curved armrests and back, decorated with scallop shells and S curves (armchair, $1,481, side chair, $1,178).
The originals are on display at Colonial Williamsburg’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Details at http://www.williamsburg
marketplace.com.
The Shakers, a religious community that grew in popularity in the 19th century, were known for their distinctively simple and sturdy crafts and furniture. Shaker designs can be seen in a number of museums and Shaker living history sites around the country. In Massachusetts, Hancock Shaker Village sells reproductions of several Shaker tables, made by Chilton Furniture of Maine, that run $450 to $650. They include a two-drawer sewing table and a table with a hinged top, in cherry or maple. Details at http://www.lswstores.com/
cat72/Furniture.html.
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