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Handcraft Fine Furniture
With sawdust at their feet and the scent of freshly planed wood in the air,
 a class of six novice furniture makers put the final touches on bedside tables
they have just handcrafted. Instructing the class is Benjamin C. Hobbs, a cabinetmaker
who teaches weeklong fine furniture-making classes from his rural northeastern
North Carolina home.
The students come from throughout the United States to spend a week with
Hobbs on his 30 acres in Perquimans County in the Albemarle region of North
Carolina.
They may be dentists, attorneys or gardeners in their workday lives, but upon
completion of Hobbs’ class they are transformed into furniture makers.
They leave for home with their own handmade reproduction of an elegant Colonial-era
piece of furniture and fond memories from a week of hard and rewarding work.
In the 1700s, North Carolina’s Albemarle region was an important furniture-making
center and Hobbs draws on this rich heritage in his classes. Hobbs stresses traditional
designs, hand tools and eighteenth-century furniture making techniques.
Trained as an educator and a cabinetmaker over 20 years, Hobbs has offered
the weeklong classes since 1995. Since that time, Hobbs has been featured
in Fine
Woodworking magazine and Woodworkers Journal.
“
Hobbs is a natural teacher with an easy smile and a just-firm enough approach
to woodworking,” said Tim Schreiner, editor of Fine Woodworking magazine
and a student in one of Hobbs’ classes.
Classes at Benjamin Hobbs Furniture are offered in Queen Anne benches,
Chippendale chairs, dovetail boxes, pencil post beds, hanging corner cupboards
and other
pieces. Tuition /includes instruction and materials for a piece of furniture.
Beechtree Inn, the on-site bed & breakfast where students stay, contribute
to the experience. In addition to his appreciation of fine early American furniture,
Hobbs has a fondness for pre-Civil War buildings. He and his wife Jackie have
collected and moved onto their property 17 buildings dating from mid-eighteenth
to mid-nineteenth centuries. To date, three have been restored and furnished
with Ben’s furniture and are the centerpiece of Beechtree Inn. Although
the cottages are historic, guests are afforded all the comforts expected of the
twenty-first century—including television, private baths and mini-refrigerators.
For more information about Benjamin Hobbs Furniture and Beechtree Inn,
contact Ben and Jackie Hobbs at bhobbs@hobbsfurniture.com; 252/426-7815;
948 Pender
Road, Hertford, NC 27944.
www.hobbsfurniture.com
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