Design With Roots

A husband-and-wife team creates handcrafted furniture with traceable origins

“In 1969, on the edge of a small stream that feeds the mighty Hudson River, a walnut took root. Here it would grow fast and strong. It would withstand the winds and the winters for 40 years by the stream’s edge. In the early summer of 2007, the winds returned, bearing pollen for a new generation of trees, but this time they blew too strongly for the tree to withstand. The walnut came down, bringing its deep roots up from the stream’s banks, but its strong, straight trunk remained intact.”
— Lana Bernberg and Basil Bouris, founders, Trace Furniture

When Trace Furniture’s founders Lana Bernberg and Basil Bouris create one of their sensuous contemporary designs, they aren’t just making a piece of furniture. They’re writing the last chapter in the story of a single, magnificent tree. Each limited-edition piece is accompanied by a “Provenance Passport”—a story of geography, history and culture, that links the furniture to the life of a responsibly and locally harvested tree. Engineered to endure for generations, the furniture is handcrafted in New York using traditional joinery techniques, then hand-finished using naturally derived oils and resins. To learn more, visit tracefurniture.com.

Trace Furniture coaxed from this single specimen a remarkable array of furnishings and accessories, including the pieces pictured below.