Allan Breed

Allan Breed, winner of the 2012 Cartouche Award from the Society of American Period Furniture Makers, began his career in woodworking as a teenager poking through flea markets for old furniture to take home and repair. A few decades later he was reproducing the Nicholas Brown Desk and Bookcase for the Brown family, when they sold the iconic Newport secretary for $12.1 million. Breed, now working with his son Sam, continues to build period furniture at his shop in New Hampshire and to teach carving and furniture making there.
 
Making anything other than furniture? “I’m reproducing 17 freestanding carved oak columns, each 8 in. dia. by 10 ft. tall. My shop’s on the third floor of an old mill, and they had to be hoisted by crane and brought in and out through the window.”