Modern classics for the landscape.(Design notes)(Company overview)

Furniture is a silhouette with an absolute need for ergonomic fit" says John Danzer, the founder of Munder-Skiles, a firm specializing in the production of both original designs and historically inspired garden furniture and related products. After earning a bachelor of arts degree in art history from Skidmore College, Danzer chose a career in international finance. He traveled extensively throughout the world, and continued to pursue his passion for art by visiting historic houses and photographing gardens on weekends and vacations. He eventually accumulated a collection of more than nine thousand slides of gardens and garden furniture. In the early 1990s he decided to devote himself full time to his passion and opened Munder-Skiles, which he names for his two grandfathers.

The first piece of garden furniture produced for Munder-Skiles was the Gothic table. It was based on one of six tables that Danzer had purchased at auction for $12,000 (five of which he then auctioned for $1 2,000, netting himself a neat profit). He took the remaining table to Tim Kapeluck, a cabinetmaker and president of Encore Woodworks in Saugerties, New York, who had made custom-designed guitars before turning his woodworking expertise to furniture. Danzer credits "this skilled craftsman with teaching him everything he knows about making wood furniture". The Gothic table's success was followed by the Kelso chair, based on a Scottish arts and crafts design. Danzer asked the well-respected architect and furniture designer John Saladino to sit in it. After doing so, Saladino recommended that the chair be cinched at the waist in order to make it more comfortable.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The uniquely sculptured designs ...