Beginnings
We’re excited to introduce a very special friend of Surroundings and esteemed writer who will be contributing to a selection of our articles. Ian J. Kirby is a designer, furniture maker, and writer who was trained in the British arts-and-crafts tradition. But how did Ian Kirby come to write for us? We’ll let Christine and Ian tell you first-hand.
From Christine
It is 1985 — What a party time the 80’s were. After I got my degree in interior design, I worked in Center City at a design firm. It was commercial design and I quickly learned that wasn’t for me, no real cool things in commercial design so I moved back to Cape May where I grew up. I said to myself…”I will be a restaurant waitress and make money” which I did for a short period, but my artistic side got to me — so I decided to dabble and work at a furniture store and see where it went. After all, I was in my 20’s and that is what you do.
I was working in a furniture store that offered basic custom furniture. I was working one beautiful Saturday and in come two guys, one of them is Ian. Ian was in town visiting an old friend. He stopped into the store I was working at — because that’s what he does when he’s traveling. I knew that Ian really knew something about the industry and making furniture just from our brief chat. He was looking at drawers and how they were constructed, it was quite interesting. So, I went over to him and asked “are you a furniture designer?" We got into a conversation about how advanced he was in furniture and how detailed he was in the construction of products. The conversation lasted two hours.
This was so long ago before cell phones — as he was leaving, he grabbed my business card, later that day he looked me up in the white pages and called my home phone number where I was living in Cape May with my mom. He asked me to meet him out for drinks that night. Being so intrigued with his knowledge, I immediately said yes. I met him and his friend out for drinks and we talked furniture for hours.
After that day, we became friends and stayed in touch. I had told him that I had a dream to learn how to make furniture. I added that I was considering going back to get my master’s degree in furniture design. Ian said, ‘come learn from me’ — he offered me an apprenticeship, I packed my bags and almost immediately moved to Connecticut and started working with him in a wood shop — hard work for sure.
Pretty quickly I realized that making furniture wasn’t in the cards for me. I didn’t quite want to admit it to myself, but the machinery wasn’t my thing. My brain just didn’t work like that, and the equipment made me so nervous. Working with Ian, I met a lot of people in the furniture business in Connecticut, that was truly a gift. I ended up going to work for someone in New Haven that offered me a job at a furniture store. They specialized in custom furniture, and still do so today, which is what my original love was. I stayed in Connecticut for a couple of more years and stayed in touch with Ian as a mentor, we have been friends ever since.
Ian has watched the evolution of Surroundings Interiors from afar for 25 years. For 25 years, he has come to visit me once or twice a year — we get together and go to dinner and talk about furniture and furniture trends. It is like the professor checking in on the student. When I was in Connecticut in the mid-eighties, working at Fairhaven Furniture I exclusively worked with custom furniture, one customer and piece at a time. I wasn’t surprised when Ian noticed that wasn’t the case anymore. I mentioned to him that high-quality, custom furniture wasn’t in as much demand these days as it used to be, and he said something very profound. He said something like ‘why don’t we offer some education around that topic?’ and a lightbulb turned on in my head. With that in mind, we've proudly gone back to our roots offering custom, high-quality furniture at every turn. We design it, we supervise the construction, we are passionate about the quality. So, I’d like to introduce to you, our esteemed article contributor, my mentor, and friend, Mr. Ian J. Kirby. Knowing Ian, for me and for Surroundings Interiors, has helped Surroundings Interiors become a destination for distinctive quality and designed custom furniture. It is a privilege to know Ian Kirby as a friend and to tap into his world class expertise of furniture construction and design. Oh…and by the way, Ian is now 91 years old and as sharp as the tools he still uses in his wood shop.
From Ian
It was a gray end-of-season day in Margate where I was visiting with a long-time friend. Hobie Cat sailing or beach time were non-starters. Up the road from Margate is Atlantic City. It holds my interest like a mud puddle. A drive to Cape May and a noted seafood restaurant sounded like a splendid idea. We didn’t take the Parkway to Cape May; we took the road less traveled. Route 9, I think it’s called.
(photograph by Donna Chiarelli)
No surprise, Cape May had the same weather as Margate. Most of the places were closed, the open ones had no customers. This wasn’t the captivating alternative I had hoped for, as well, the vaunted restaurant wasn’t open yet. We drove back leisurely along the same route. At some point, a large, red-painted wooden building with the word, “furniture,” in white letters came into view. It was on our side of the road. Going the other way, we hadn’t noticed it so the white letters were out of our view.
No cars in the car park. No surprise. The ambiance of the building and its signature lettering style were all the indication I needed to tell me there was nothing of interest in this venture. The day up to now had been a downer, so why would this be different? We parked and went inside. Into a space full of furniture. A space that gave the impression that it was probably measured in acreage. It was tightly packed with product, new product, of varying styles, finished in varying tones of stain and gloss. I wasn’t disappointed in my expectations.
We hadn’t been in the place a few seconds when, from across the room, came the inevitable, “can I help you?” The inquisitor threaded her way to us and it took but a few minutes before the conversation of the who, what, where and why was underway.
My story went something like this. I had recently returned to Connecticut from a four-year stint of teaching and working in California. The “work” was making parts and fittings for the interior of a grandiose house in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles. There was a considerable amount of work to complete and I had the use of a vacant workshop in a large, well-equipped facility where a former student of mine ran a successful company making hardwood flooring.
At some point after this in the round robin of who’s who, Christine announced that she would like to come and study with me. No amount of explaining that I was fully occupied with the work in hand and had no time to teach, especially on a one-to-one basis, had any effect. As well, but without verbalizing, the idea that she could use the tools was out of the question.
She insisted, and I resisted. She insisted until I submitted. She came, rented a place, got a night job waiting tables, and watched the work being done, most times I explained the what and why, sometimes she asked questions and she danced attendance to fetching and carrying.
We became good friends with that veil between teacher and taught. As the work was coming to an end, Christine took a job in a furniture store, an unusual furniture store. It specialized in carefully crafted work, well designed, and mostly made in one- or two-man shops and the store had good clientele.
Her passion for furniture was already established. In some, the passion is making, in some designing, in some it’s teaching. For Christine, it’s using her knowledge of furniture and her foresight to help people buy furniture.
