the guru oldworldartistrymadefornew projectsliving areas. they create rooms of hand-carved elements...

M4 | Friday, May 1, 2020 THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

BY ALINA DIZIK

Artisans atMerrittWoodworkfinish pieces forclients beforeon-siteinstallation.

1. Dan Reichert,cabinetmaker.

2. FinishingcoordinatorBrittany Moore.

3. An employeegives a surfacetexture and adistressed look.

4. JavierMunoz, finisher.

OldWorld ArtistryMade for NewProjectsMerritt Woodwork in Mentor, Ohio, has a staff of artisans trained to create ‘a natural aspect’ in home interiors

THE GURU

The Long Is-land, N.Y., roomhas a ceilingwith antiqueoak beams andfluted verticalwood trim forthe mantel.

When it comes to im-plementing wood el-ements throughoutthe home, most ar-

chitects know a guy who knows aguy. Often, that guy is G. MichaelMerritt.

Mr. Merritt, 54, leads his name-sake second-generation wood-working company in providingprecise millwork for stately homelibraries, expansive closets, cus-tom kitchens, staircases and openliving areas. They create rooms ofhand-carved elements and mov-

able panelingand restore an-tique decora-tive features,often usinghard-to-findwoods.

“Woodbrings a natu-ral aspect by

bringing the outside in,” says Mr.Merritt, president of MerrittWoodwork, based in Mentor, Ohio.He says the right wood can addwarmth to a room or create whathe calls “a crisper interior” for atailored, modern look.

Merritt is one of the largestcompanies working on high-endconstruction. Its custom work fora large single-family home canrange from $5 million to $15 mil-lion—a fraction of the overall con-struction budget for a typical cli-ent, Mr. Merritt says.

For one recent project, a$300,000 kitchen, his company’sartisans had to integrate bleachedelm kitchen cabinets with variousceiling elements, matching every-thing to the millimeter.

Construction projects can lasttwo to three years, with the work-ers usually completing one projectat a time. Mr. Merritt works witharchitects to come up with an en-gineering plan, then moves on tofabrication and installation. Thecompany also can add replicationsof period furniture, he adds.

A current residential libraryproject in an East Coast homethat includes carving ornate LouisXV-style screens, will requireabout 5,000 working hours, he es-timates. The panels will be carvedin Ohio, finished in the company’sSan Francisco workshop and theninstalled on site.

“We are re-creating it the sameway they would have done it backin 1705,” Mr. Merritt says.

One out of five of the com-pany’s projects involves deployingOld World techniques. To meetdemand, Merritt acquired a smallwoodcarving firm in 2018, adding17 master carvers who can createmoldings and intricate woodscreens. A total staff of 250works in the U.S., Germany andthe U.K.

In the Ohio workshop, wood ishand-selected to find a precisegrain and color match. It can takeyears to locate high-grade or ex-otic woods, such as oak from theSpessart region in Germany, saysMr. Merritt.

Wood-panel rooms and featuresare assembled inside the com-pany’s 110,000-square-foot mainplant to minimize labor costs on

$5‑15MILLIONCost of customwoodwork ontypical client’s

home

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main areas, they installed wood-paneled ceilings to soften thelighting.

A beachfront project on NewYork’s Long Island required a tra-ditional wood paneling painted inlight grays and a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling. “It bringssome formality, but it’s not likePark Avenue formal,” Mr. Merrittsays of the 15,000-square-foothome.

An unexpected popular request:creating an iridescent wood lookon traditional mahogany doors,using a classic French polish tech-nique of rubbing in shellac madefrom resinous insect secretions.“True French polish is not some-thing you can learn quickly,” headds.

Employees experienced in suchtraditional crafts are tough tofind. As a result, Mr. Merritt nowemploys two full-time teachers totrain employees in “dying crafttrades.”

Last summer, four employeesspent two weeks learning how tofinish and hang 200-pound cus-tom solid doors with speciallymanufactured hardware. Eachdoor can cost $15,000 to $30,000. DA

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the road. They are then disassem-bled and loaded onto tempera-ture-controlled trucks.

“We put the whole room to-gether and stand it up to makesure it’s perfect, then we take itto the field and install,” Mr. Mer-ritt says. Ceilings are built upside-down on raised platforms, and thecompany uses 3-D printing to getprecise alignment.

One trend he sees is a demandfor luxurious white oak andsturdy walnut to create cool, mod-ern tones. “Nobody likes red,” hesays.

Mr. Merritt and his brother,Keith Merritt, head up the busi-ness. The brothers took over the53-year-old family firm from theirfather in 2001. By then, the clien-tele had changed from middle-class homeowners to high-net-worth individuals with largerprojects.

Last year, the business hadabout $70 million in sales, com-pared with $4 million in 2001,says Michael Merritt.

The majority of work is on theEast and West coasts, along withsome international homes and aseparate yacht business. Mr. Mer-ritt says he spends most of histime on the road, meeting witharchitects and focusing on sales.

The workshop is asked for awide variety of styles. For an18,000-square-foot Aspen, Colo.,project, the workshop createdcontemporary custom kitchen cab-inetry with an Art Deco-style in-lay, plus built-ins for the bath-rooms, two butler’s pantries andacoustical ceiling panels. In the

CEILINGPANELS$450 persquare foot

The paneling in the dining area of an Aspen, Colo., home has a horizontal grain that must be meticulously matched in the workshop. The design gives the home a modern look.

FLAT WALLPANELS$350 persquare foot

Hand-waxed Baltic pine panels in the library of a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,home are curved to complement the Mediterranean Revival style.

CURVEDWALL PANELS$450 per square foot

Vertical-grain custom kitchen cabinets in the Aspen home are integratedwith a ceiling lighting design that includes wood, onyx and metal.

KITCHEN CABINETS$650 per square foot

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