Woodworker: D. Douglas Mooberry

Doug Mooberry has loved American period furniture since he was a small boy. He remembers following his mother into antiques stores, opening drawers and exploring secret compartments. Today his six-man shop, Kinloch Woodworking in Unionville, Pa., produces furniture richly informed by tradition. But, he says, “I hate to blatantly copy. I always try to make a piece my own.” For this piece, Mooberry adopted the overall proportions, cock-beaded drawers, and reeded quarter-columns of a classic Chippendale chest of drawers. Then he “kicked it up a notch” with the wood he chose—solid crotch mahogany for the top, figured mahogany for the case, and shop-sawn crotch mahogany veneer for the drawer fronts. The personal twist came in the carving. Mooberry and his family are avid scuba divers and often spend their vacations exploring the sea. No surprise, then, that under water imagery surfaced on the carved edge of the chest’s top, where tiny scallop shells alternate with starfish against a stippled bed of sand. The chest was built at his shop by Jeff Dixon, with the carving done by Steven Swann.

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