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Stickley Furniture - Page 3

© Barbara Bell

The American public's propensity for novelty, the end of World War I, the beginning of the love affair with the Machine that characterized the 1920s and 1930s, also signaled the end of the Arts & Crafts movement in the United States. In 1922, L. and J.G. Stickley introduced a line of furniture which mimicked the colonial style popularized by Wallace Nutting, called The Cherry Valley Collection. From that point until the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Stickley furniture production dwindled to near extinction.

While you could find the tossed-aside remnants of such furniture in attics, barns and fleamarkets for a number of decades, and pick them up for a song, it was the sudden success of Barbra Streisand's collection of Stickley which returned the style to the attention of residential designers, interior decorators and antique dealers. Her sale of a Stickley sideboard in 1988 at auction for over $300,000 woke up a previously uninterested public to its beauty.

In 1974, the son of a friend of Leopold Stickley bought the company from Mrs. Louise Stickley. Alfred Audi and his wife, Aminy, have invested a fortune into the revitalization of the company, its furniture lines, and the community. Even after opening a larger facility in nearby Manlius, New York, the Fayetteville facility continues to dominate the town and surrounding suburbs. Their marketing and promotional expertise has returned Stickley to the forefront of high-end furniture design. Today the company employs about 1300 employees and once again, the demand for Stickley furniture is very high. The value of original Gustav Stickley furniture, and to some extent that of his brothers', continues to grow as it is recognized as true, and unique, American design.

For further reading:
Stickley.com
Gray Cells' Arts & Crafts Movement.
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle article by Jennie Bowker.
Fayetteville Bulletin May 21, 1909.
Collectics.com article on Stickley.
1999 Arts & Crafts Exhibition brochure.
HGTV.com discussion of Stickley wicker furniture.

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Sources: (1) The Craftsman Farms Foundation, by Ray Stubblebine.
(2) The Craftsman Farms Foundation, same.
(3) Dalton's Antiques: Dave Rudd, antiques dealer (Syracuse), from his site.

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