Buffet Cart

The third and final piece of furniture Jay built for Denise's designer booth at the Philadelphia Home Show is this buffet cart.  This buffet is made from a utility cart that was recovered from the Scranton Lace Factory which was founded in 1897 and operated until 2002. The Scranton Lace Factory was the first and largest producers of Nottingham Lace. The lace was made on looms that stood several stories high and were roughly fifty feet long. The factory not only made lace, but also parachutes, tarpaulins and mosquito netting during World War II, and later curtains and other household items as lace began to fall out of fashion.

At nearly 700,000 square feet, the 1,400 workers needed carts to move tools, spools and lace throughout the building. This buffet started as one of those carts!

The cart has handmade wrought iron sides and cast iron wheels. The cart dates to approximately the same era as the factory, making it over 100 years old. After meticulously cleaning and buffing all the cast and wrought iron on the cart, the piece began to come back to life! After applying tung oil to the wood, we fabricated a steel frame to accept a top and used carriage bolts to secure it.

The wood used to make the top dates to even earlier than the cart and was removed from a late 1800’s barn in Pennsylvania. Like the base of the cart, the planks on the top are also oak and contain over a century’s worth of character and history from the people, animals and machinery that moved across the barn floor.

While in its current form, this piece is a beautiful accent to any room, it is our hope that you see much more than “reclaimed” wood and iron. Our sincere hope is that this piece serves as a reminder of the thousands of men and women who used this exact cart and millions like it to run the factories and mills that built this country. For it is those people, the backbone of this country, who afforded us the luxuries and freedoms which we are now accustomed.

The American Iron Horse: Pommel Horse Table & Bench

This table began as a pommel horse used in a gymnasium at the Scranton Lace Factory, which was founded in 1897 and operated until 2002. The factory employed over 1,400 people in its prime and it was made up of several buildings with surprising accommodations which included a bowling alley, barber shop, gymnasium and infirmary. The Scranton Lace Company’s clock tower became a city landmark.

The pommel horse was made by Porter Athletic which was founded in Ottawa, Illinois in 1868. Porter Athletic got its start with pulleys, hardware and hayloft equipment for barns. The technology used to manufacture these items allowed them to transfer over into the manufacturing of gymnasium equipment. 

After the leather pommel was removed from the cast iron base, Jay was able to study the gears which led to the discovery of a crank and a complete dissection of the base.



This was the jumping off point at which he committed to the idea of a table which could sit at a standard 30” or be raised to island or bar height. After cleaning and buffing each part of the base, right down to the ball bearings, he put the base back together and built a tabletop from 2” thick oak threshing floor. Threshing is the process of separating loose chaff from grain and the threshing floor is one of the most valued parts of a barn.

Where the gears extended above the tabletop, Jay crafted lazy susans! (Also made from threshing floor). Finally, he manufactured poles which secure a 1920's pot rack that came from the Majestic Hotel in Hot Springs Arkansas. The pots that originally hung on it were used to feed the likes of gangsters such as Bugsy Segal and baseball stars such as Babe Ruth himself. 

The top of the pommel horse is made of leather and was removed to create a bench that is destined to remain with the table. Both the tabletop and leather were then finished with several coats of hand rubbed tung oil. The cast iron base was finished with a stove black rub through. 

There is not a single bearing, peg, piece of wood or iron in this piece of work that is not made in America. While the barn floor, gym horse and pot rack have not always been together, we believe it is a perfect marriage and hope that many meals are enjoyed and conversations sparked around this Iron Horse that embodies the many trades, impeccable craftsmanship and commitment to hard work of early America.

The Aftermath

Scranton Lace Factory

We have had the tremendous privilege to have been on NatGeo's show Abandoned.  The pilot episode, which aired in December of 2011, featured Jay and his buddies Mark and Dan exploring the Scranton Lace Factory.  They found many unique and salvageable items which they then brought out of the factory to refurbish or sell.

We ended up becoming good friends with the owner and were given the opportunity to explore the factory more deeply.

Check it out in the video below.