Star in Wood.
Turned ash with a hand-cut walnut star inlay. The lamp that argued for wood, not brass, as the warmest material in a room. Featured in House Beautiful, Apartment Therapy, Country Living.
Wood as the warmest material.
Star in Wood was lathe-turned ash, twenty inches tall, with a single hand-cut walnut star inlay at the widest point of the column. The brass hardware was minimal: socket, harp, finial. Everything else was wood.
The argument the lamp made was that brass had been doing all the work in catalogs for a decade and wood was being treated as the affordable alternative. Done right, wood is warmer than brass. The ash was finished with a slow oil cure that brought out the grain instead of glazing over it.
Production ran for three years. It came off the line in 2019 when the small-shop turner who produced the columns retired.
Turn. Inlay. Cure slow.
Three rules that made wood read as primary, not secondary, in rooms designed around the lamp. Same rules now inform how the network’s installers approach interior fixture trim selection.
01
Lathe-turned, not pressed
Each column turned on a wood lathe by a single craftsman. Tool marks were left visible. Slip-fit assembly with no screws. The structure was the design.
02
Hand-cut inlay, not laser
The walnut star was hand-cut, inlaid into the ash, then sanded flush. Laser-cut alternatives existed at a fraction of the cost. The studio used hand-cut anyway because the slight asymmetry across pieces was the visual signature.
03
Oil cure, slow
The ash was oiled, allowed to cure for ten days, oiled again, cured again. Three full cycles before the lamp shipped. Quick-cure finishes would have darkened the ash uniformly. The slow cycle let the wood take the oil unevenly, which is what made the grain readable.
Wood as the warmest material is still true.
The lamp is no longer made. The principle (wood, finished slowly, reads warmer than any metal) sits behind how the network’s designers approach interior trim coordination on Craftsman, traditional, and modern-farmhouse projects.