A millwork and soft furnishings studio. Four generations of craft in New York City. We work with a small number of private clients and do not seek to grow beyond the scale at which the work can be done well.
The family has been working in wood in New York City since the early twentieth century. What began in a single workshop in Queens — furniture repair, custom cabinet work, fitting out small commercial interiors — became, across four generations, a practice concentrated on bespoke residential work for private clients.
Each generation narrowed the scope and raised the standard. The third generation moved the primary workshop to Brooklyn and began working directly with architects and interior designers on residential commissions. The current generation formalized that practice as Era Interiors — a name chosen to mark a deliberate turn toward a different way of working.
Era maintains fabrication capacity across two New York workshops — the primary millwork facility in Brooklyn and a secondary facility in Queens that the family has operated in some form for over a century. All millwork is fabricated in New York. We do not subcontract fabrication to shops outside the city or outside our direct supervision.
This is not a virtue claim. It is a practical requirement of the work. The level of precision that bespoke residential millwork demands — the tight inset reveals, the species conditioning, the finishing system — cannot be achieved at a remove. The person who drew the detail needs to be able to walk to the bench where it is being made.
Both workshops are equipped for the full range of residential millwork production: dimensional lumber milling, case construction, frame-and-panel assembly, finishing in a controlled environment, and pre-assembly of complex units before delivery.
The workshops are not open to clients. We bring completed and partially assembled work to the site; clients visit the finished installation. We bring the work to you — completed pieces to the site, and material samples or specifications through our design team for selections.
Installation is performed by Era's own crew. We do not hire installation labor by the job or use subcontractors for on-site work. The craftspeople who built the piece are, where possible, the same people who install it.
Soft furnishings are fabricated in a dedicated workshop separate from the millwork environment — climate-controlled to stable temperature and humidity, away from the dust and solvent exposure that woodworking generates. Upholstery, drapery, and all fabric work require a clean, conditioned environment; the soft furnishings workshop maintains that environment as a standard operating condition, not an accommodation. The same direct supervision standard applies: the person who wrote the soft furnishings specification is the person responsible for the fabrication, and installation is performed by the same team.
Era does not seek to grow. This is not a temporary condition of the business — it is the point of the business. The quality we produce is a function of the attention we give each project. That attention is finite. The number of projects we take at any time reflects how many can be given full attention simultaneously, not how many we could manage.
There is a category of millwork business that grows by systematizing the work — by developing production processes that can be replicated by less-skilled labor, by winning larger projects, by expanding into commercial or hospitality work. We have watched that category many times. The result is always the same: the work that made the business worth growing is the first thing to go.
Six to eight active residential projects. Fewer when scope is large. The number is not a marketing position — it is a capacity limit.
Full residential programs — kitchen, library, paneling, storage, soft furnishings — and significant single-scope commissions. Our minimum scope is a room, not a repair.
New York City residential buildings. Manhattan, Brooklyn, the outer boroughs where our clients live. We do not travel for projects.
We do not advertise. We do not list in directories. Most clients come through referral — from an architect, a designer, or someone whose home we have worked in. Occasionally someone finds us through research, and those conversations start just as well.
Era works exclusively with private residential clients — individuals and families commissioning work in their homes, not developers, hotels, restaurants, or commercial operators. This focus is not a business strategy. It reflects what the work requires.
A bespoke residential commission involves the client's home, their daily life, and in most cases their family's use of the space for decades. The relationship that kind of work requires — direct, honest, built on trust — is not replicable in a commercial or developer context, where the end occupant is unknown and the incentive structure runs in the wrong direction.
We work with interior designers and architects as collaborators on residential projects, not as vendors to their clients. The distinction matters. When an interior designer brings Era onto a project, they are not purchasing a product — they are adding a fabricator whose technical knowledge and design literacy they trust. We engage directly with the design team on every decision that affects what we build. We do not execute drawings without understanding them.
Client information — building, program, budget, personal circumstances — is held in strict confidence. Most of our completed work has never been photographed for publication and will not be. The clients who work with us at this level are not seeking visibility. Neither are we.
Inquiries are handled personally. There is no intake form, no sales process, no account manager. The first conversation is with the studio principal. If the project is not right, we say so quickly.
"Our work is not protected by secrets — it is protected by the years it took to accumulate the skill to execute it."Era Interiors — Millwork Reference