The Beginning
It was almost by accident that Swartzendruber Hardwood Creations
became a custom furniture company. The founder, Larion Swartzendruber,
was a young High School shop teacher in his early twenties, supervising
students building clock cases for class projects and working on
hot rods in the school parking lot, when a local company approached
him about making wood cases for their high-end stereo equipment.
The first sets of cabinets were built with help from the students,
using borrowed money and working nights in the school shop. As the
project grew it first moved into Larion’s garage (which soon
proved too small), spilled out into his backyard (the Northern Indiana
weather soon brought an end to that!) and finally landed in a converted
barn across town.
The barn housed Swartzendruber Hardwood Creations for five years,
as the company grew and began to add permanent employees. There
were some very lean years early on - they tried building foosball
tables for added income, but the games were played more by the employees
than the customers!
As Larion’s friends and acquaintances learned about his woodworking
efforts, he began to receive requests to build customized furniture,
and the company moved in a new direction. The barn became so packed
with wood and equipment that one machine had to be moved to get
to the next - it was clear a new facility was needed. Larion’s
first historic building - the Goshen Buggy Top factory, where buggies
had been constructed by Amish craftsmen for many years, was Swartzendruber
Hardwood Creations' new home. By this time the company’s largest
business was custom furniture, each piece built by a single craftsman
out of solid hardwood. Country Syle Oak furniture was just coming
into vogue, and Larion had developed a new finish using transparent
danish oils rather than stains which was wildly popular. Round tables
with up to seven leaves, ladderback chairs, traditional bookcase
units and cannonball bed frames were best sellers during those years.
In 1984 a new crisis roiled the waters - the city of Goshen decided
to build a new office building and the Buggy Top Building was the
site they wanted. After lengthy negotiations the building was sold
to the city, and Swartzendrubers had 6 months to find a building,
renovate it, and relocate a large assortment of woodworking equipment.
It seemed a feasible task except for one major problem - there were
no suitable buildings on the market. One structure had lost its
roof a few years before and the floors were caving in, some were
too small, and one, the Chase Bag Factory, was 6 times too large.
No one was very excited about building a sterile Pole Building for
a showroom, but that was looking like the only option when Larion
decided to take one last look at the bag factory.
The Old Bag Factory
It was like walking back in time. In the dead of winter, the cold
whistled through the broken windows and barely illuminated the cave-like
interior. The building had been deserted for years, its huge, echoing
floors decorated with pigeon dung and the oily dirt of three generations
of machinery. But it had ‘potential’ - the perfect spot
for a showroom was over here, the entrance could go on the south
next to the old trolley track, the shop down in the lower level
- Larion took a deep breath and bought it.
After removing tons of old pipes, rewiring, sanding 1/4” off
the old hardwood floors, painting everything, working all night,
Swartzendruber Hardwood Creations moved in. "The first month
all the floors were still covered with plastic, all the showroom
furniture was stacked in a corner, things didn’t work, customers
didn’t know how to find us - but we survived." The building
was so huge we didn’t know what to do with it all - and that
spawned the dream of the Old Bag Factory Complex. Gradually, space
was rented out to other Artisans and Craftspeople. Today there are
20 individual shops in 25,000 square feet of retail space drawing
over 120,00 visitors a year.
Incredible Commissions
Meanwhile, Swartzendruber Hardwood Creations' custom furniture
business took off. The pieces became more and more complex, involving
other disciplines such as hand carving, etched and leaded glass,
stone, Corian, inlay, fancy veneers and special finishes. Swartzendruber
Hardwood Creations built Classic English libraries with Corinthian
columns, bookcases that concealed hidden passageways, tables with
13 leaves, 25’ conference tables, and whatever else people
wanted. We reproduced antiques, paneled rooms with 30 foot ceilings,
created original contemporary designs, and matched Grandma’s
precious hutch so both grandchildren could have it! We also produced
many ‘normal’ pieces for individuals who weren’t
happy with the quality of what they saw in the stores or just couldn’t
find what they were looking for. Many of our pieces are in spectacular
homes from Florida to Hawaii, but more are simply the especially
prized possessions of school teachers, business people, farmers,
engineers and others.
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Prairie Furniture
Seven years ago we started getting requests for ‘Prairie-style’
furniture. "I had to go to the library and figure out what
it was - it certainly wasn’t popular yet!" The first custom
designed set we built was the forerunner of our Prairie Collection
Dining Room. As so often happens, the client’s new home fell
behind schedule, and the furniture was completed before the house.
We placed the set in our showroom while waiting for the go ahead
to deliver it - and were amazed at the response. So many people
said “This is just what I’ve been looking for!” We
built a second set for our showroom and took it to Chicago, home
of the Prairie movement and much of Wright’s early prairie
work, and people were even more effusive about it. So we built another
set, and another, and another...
Today we have one of the largest lines (if not the largest line)
of Prairie furniture available, each piece created or adapted for
today’s lifestyles. We are still a custom furniture company
at heart, though, so any piece can be readily adapted to your needs
or we can create something new for you.
If you are lucky enough to live in the Midwest (!) it will be worth
your while to visit our showroom, just off I-80 in Northern Indiana.
There you can touch the furniture, observe it being made, and see
first hand what we have accomplished over the last 30 years.
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