House Country Style Chests: Pays and Bernsen's own artistry as renovators first garnered notice after they spent three years redoing an English country-style home in Beverly Hills, and then sold it to actor Steve Martin in 1995. The house Country Style Chests included a wine cellar, screening room and music room as well as a guest house Country Style Chests made of stone.
Doors were imported from England, and wooden beams originated in a barn in Connecticut. "It was just a great house Country Style Chests. We went all out," Pays recalls.
Furniture made in the block-front design includes chests of drawers, knee-hole bureau desks and tables, slant-front desks and secretaries and chests-on-chests. Most of those with shell carving are considered to have been the work of two Newport, R. I., cabinetmakers, John Goddard and John Town-send. Less elaborate pieces were made by cabinetmakers working within an area comprising southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut except for one craftsman working in New York City who made a few knee-hole bureau tables. |
