Adriance Furnituremakers is the Recipient of these Prestigious Awards
Bulfinch Award for Craftsmanship & Artisanship ~ Institute of Classical Architecture & Art
Best Craftsman ~ Early American Life Magazine
Best Furniture Maker ~ Bloomberg Press
Editor's Choice ~ Yankee Magazine
Bulfinch Award for Craftsmanship & Artisanship ~ Institute of Classical Architecture & Art
As seen in EastBayRI.com By Lucy Probert April 2022
Cherished heirloom furniture, built locally, is meant to pass from one generation to the next
Gary Adriance has been handmaking heirloom furniture in South Dartmouth for 40 years using traditional construction methods like mortise and tenon joinery, inspired by antiques he’s observed in museums and private collections.
“Early on in my career I spent a lot of time in museums studying their antiques,” he says. “I would ask for permission to touch old pieces and measure them. It was the basis of what I still do today. It’s a unique and simple style.”
Adriance furniture designs include Shaker, Colonial and Federal, using native cherry and tiger maple wood selected from sawmills recognized by the Forest Stewardship Council for sustainable forestry. “We have pieces that are basically borrowed from history, but the iteration you see is a reflection of my lifestyle,” says Adriance.
His offerings include dining and occasional tables with beautifully tapered legs, desks with drawer sides joined with hand sawn and chiseled dovetails, as well as beds with hand-turned posts and matched-grain wide headboards.
Each piece is carefully cut, crafted and inspected by Adriance before it leaves his workshop and also includes his trademark starwheel symbol. His customers are loyal, and word of mouth is his best advertising.
“I like to say everything is built and priced for the South Coast audience,” he says.
Like the fashion industry, furniture styles change, and Adriance works to keep up with the times. “In the early part of my career period furniture was in demand. Now the trend is more towards contemporary, so although I specialize in traditional themes I have adapted and kept abreast of what is happening today,” he says.
Adriance won the Bulfinch Award for Craftsmanship and Artisanship from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art for his Federal Demilune Hall Table in 2013. “This mahogany table, which has about 475 inlaid elements, was a tribute to a masterwork by John Seymour of Boston, circa 1794, which sold at auction for over $540,000 in 1998,” he says.
About 15 years ago, when Nicolas Cage bought a home in Newport, he commissioned Adriance to build him a table, which he did: A 35’ x 8’ mahogany table in seven sections with 56 legs, 26 chairs and the actor’s initials, the date and his studio logo, Saturn, inlaid into the massive top at the table’s head.
When he built his own post and beam home with a barn in the back for a workshop in Padanaram Village in the early 1980s, his showroom was inside the house. “My wife Laurie came home from work one day and our bed was gone because I had sold it,” he says. Their dining table and children’s beds went out the same way. “Local people sought us out. By 1990 we had outgrown the barn and built the showroom and 5,000-square-foot workshop where we are today on Gulf Road.”
With no plans to move, he’s become ingrained in his community. “My customers have become my friends,” says Adriance. “And they allow me to do what I love. It’s incredibly soul satisfying.”
As Seen In
The New Yorker Yankee Magazine New England Home Newport Life Cape Cod Life
Rhode Island Monthly SouthCoast Almanac Distinctive Homes Nantucket Home Boston Design Guide
Early American Life Chronicle TV East Bay News Bloomberg Shorelines