Tom Seely Furniture Gallery
Tom Seely Furniture. Thank you for taking a look through our catalog. Whether you already own some of our antique reproductions or are viewing our furniture for the first time, we want you to know what makes our company and furniture unique.
- We build all of our furniture by hand, one piece at a time, for you. When one of our cabinetmakers completes a piece of furniture, he/she personally signs and dates it.
- We use the term “antique reproduction” in reference to both the style of our furniture and the manner in which we construct it. We don’t simply make furniture to look like antiques…we make furniture the way antiques were originally built.
- We work exclusively with solid wood and still use many of the fine woodworking techniques considered standard in the 19th century.
- We still make all of our furniture in the United States. We produce about half of our furniture in an oversized workshop in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. A collection of more than 25 individual workshops – many owned by Amish and Mennonite families – handbuilds the remainder in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
I hope you enjoy what you see and that you give us the opportunity to share our passion for our craft with you and your family.A pioneer in the antique business, Tom Seely has spent a lifetime valuing the craftsmanship of Early American cabinetmakers, recognizing a love and integrity in their work and developing an eye for the simple sophistication of their designs.
Tom’s fascination with antique furniture began after his return to America from World War II. Back then, many people thought of Early American furniture as simply used furniture. Tom saw it differently, recognizing a refinement of design and construction that mass production failed to match.
In the early 1950s, Tom opened an antique store next to his home in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Behind that store, he kept a small workshop where he repaired, refinished and stored items that he collected from the surrounding countryside. By the mid-1960s, Tom watched the demand for antiques outgrow supply. Recognizing this shortfall, he began to make reproductions of his favorite antiques, focussing on creating new furniture that emphasized lasting design and construction. As customers increased, Tom enlisted the help of other local craftsmen, and the business grew into the Tom Seely Furniture company we know today—where solid wood furniture is still crafted by hand, one piece at a time, using the same fine woodworking techniques employed by early cabinetmakers prior to the 20th century.
We still believe that the quality of our furniture, in both its design and construction, comes from our appreciation of the past – an appreciation embodied by our founder.
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