Heywood Wakefield Maple Night Stand

Created by the 19th-century merger of two venerable Massachusetts furniture makers, Heywood-Wakefield was one of the largest and most successful companies of its kind in the United States. In its early decades, the firm thrived by crafting affordable and hugely popular wicker pieces in traditional and historical styles. In the midst of the Great Depression, however, Heywood-Wakefield reinvented itself, creating instead the first modernist furnishings to be widely embraced in American households.

The Heywoods were five brothers from Gardner, Massachusetts, who in 1826 started a business making wooden chairs and tables in their family shed. As their company grew, they moved into the manufacture of furniture with steam-bent wood frames and cane or wicker seats, backs and sides. In 1897, they joined forces with a local rival, the Wakefield Rattan Company, whose founder, Cyrus Wakefield, got his start on the Boston docks buying up lots of discarded rattan, which was used as cushioning material in the holds of cargo ships, and transforming it into furnishings. The conglomerate initially did well with both early American style and woven pieces, but taste began to change at the turn of the 20th century and wicker furniture fell out of fashion. In 1930, the company brought in designer Gilbert Rohde, a champion of the Art Deco style. Before departing in 1932 to lead the Michigan furniture maker Herman Miller, Rohde created well-received sleek, bentwood chairs for Heywood-Wakefield and gave its colonial pieces a touch of Art Deco flair.

Committed to the new style, Heywood-Wakefield commissioned work from an assortment of like-minded designers, including Alfons Bach, W. Joseph Carr, Leo Jiranek and Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, a Russian nobleman who had made his name in Europe creating elegant automotive body designs.

In 1936, the company introduced its “Streamline Modern” group of furnishings, presenting a look that would define the company’s wares for another 30 years. The buoyantly bright, blond wood — maple initially, later birch — came in finishes such as amber “wheat” and pink-tinted “champagne.” The forms of the pieces, at once light and substantial, with softly contoured edges and little adornment beyond artful drawer pulls and knobs, were featured in lines with names such as “Sculptura,” “Crescendo” and “Coronet.” It was forward-looking, optimistic and built to last — a draw for middle-class buyers in the Baby Boom years. 

By the 1960s, Heywood-Wakefield began to be seen as “your parents’ furniture.” The last of the Modern line came out in 1966; the company went bankrupt in 1981. The truly sturdy pieces have weathered the intervening years well, having found a new audience for their blithe and happy sophistication.

Find a collection of vintage Heywood-Wakefield desks, chairs, tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Nightstands are traditionally designed with functionality in mind. Prior to the advent of indoor plumbing, early nightstands contained a porcelain chamber pot in a cabinet that provided a convenient and private alternative to visiting the outhouse. Today, antique, new and vintage nightstands — which are pieces of bedroom furniture that are often called bedside tables — are typically low-profile tables that are positioned alongside one’s bed or elsewhere in a bedroom.

A nightstand is mainly used to store or support objects that may be needed at night, such as a phone, a book or a small carafe of water. But this table can easily be personalized. "I’ve got a huge vintage lamp, and when I’m lucky, I’ll have fresh flowers in a bud vase," Chicago interior designer Summer Thornton tells 1stDibs about styling a nightstand.

Whether you take a minimalist approach to bedside table decor or prefer to top it with stacks of books and other essentials that you'd like to have at arm's length — this furniture can also change the look and feel of a bedroom, rendering any interior more comfortable and cozy.

Practicality plays a prominent role in perfecting your bedside space, but the decision to furnish your bedroom with a cherrywood mid-century modern nightstand or an antique mahogany piece can have an impact on how you start your day.

Take the first step in setting the perfect tone of your morning — browse the wide selection of Art Deco nightstands, burl-wood nightstands, oak nightstands and other antique and vintage nightstands on 1stDibs now.