Kingston, New York’s Four Corners is celebrated for its craggy stone structures: it’s the only crossroad in the country in which all of the buildings date to pre-Revolutionary War days. They’re well-preserved, zoned for residential and commercial use, and not entirely time warps: Number 45 Crown Street is the new headquarters of Sawkille, Jonah Meyer and Tara DeLisio’s artisanal furniture company, a longstanding Remodelista favorite.
The Sawkille workshop has been in Kingston for the last 20 years, so when Tara, creative director of the business, saw the house in a listing, the couple made the decision to move out of their gallery-like space in nearby Rhinebeck and turn the landmark into their showcase, preserving the interior as is, from front parlor and dining room to upstairs bedroom and bath. Says Jonah, “It was a cool opportunity to present our work in a residential setting.”
Jonah grew up in what he describes as a hippie family of makers: his father, a jeweler, built their house in Central Pennsylvania, and his mother is a potter. Jonah himself majored in painting at RISD and fell into furniture design after building some chairs for his senior show: “all of my professors bought them, so I kept making chairs.” Someone who is also incessantly drawing, painting, and whittling, he welcomed the opportunity to playfully but respectfully leave his stamp on the place. Come see.
Photography as credited, courtesy of Sawkille (@sawkillecompany).
Jonah hand painted the Sawkille sign and included the skull because locals tell him the house is haunted: “The story is the original occupant, the doctor, went to Europe and came back with a wife. They were seen walking in the town—and then they stopped seeing her. Kids passing by peered through the parted curtains and spotted the doctor dining with a skeleton seated across from him. He was run out of town.” Photograph by Dane Tashima.
