Drexel Plus One

While vintage Drexel Furniture dining tables, dressers and other pieces remain highly desirable for enthusiasts of mid-century modern design, the manufacturer's story actually begins decades before its celebrated postwar-era Declaration line took shape.

In 1903, in the small town of Drexel in the foothills of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, six partners came together to found a company that would become one of the country’s leading furniture producers. The first offerings from Drexel Furniture were simple: a bed, washstand and bureau all crafted from native oak wood, sold as a bedroom suite for $14.50.

One of Drexel’s early innovations was to employ staff designers, something the company initiated in the 1930s. This focus on design, which few other furniture companies were committing to at the time, allowed Drexel to respond to a variety of new and traditional tastes. This included making pieces inspired by historic European furniture, like the popular French Provincial–style Touraine bedroom and dining group that borrowed its curves from Louis XV-era furniture. Others replicated the ornate details of 18th-century chinoiserie or the embellishments of Queen Anne furniture. Always ready to adapt to new customer demands, during World War II, Drexel built a sturdy desk designed especially for General Douglas MacArthur.

In the postwar era, Drexel embraced the clean lines of mid-century modernism with the Declaration collection designed by Stewart MacDougall and Kipp Stewart that featured elegant credenzas and more made in walnut, and the Profile and Projection collections designed with sculptural shapes by John Van Koert. In the 1970s, Drexel introduced high-end furniture in a Mediterranean style.

Drexel changed hands and visions throughout the years. It was managed by one of the original partners — Samuel Huffman — until 1935, at which time his son Robert O. Huffman took over as president. It was then that the company began to expand, with several acquisitions of competitors in the 1950s, including Table Rock Furniture, the Heritage Furniture Co. and more.

With the manufacturer’s success — spurred by its embrace of advertising in home and garden magazines — it opened more factories in both North and South Carolina. By 1957, the company that had started with a factory of 50 workers had 2,300 employees and was selling its furniture nationwide.

Drexel underwent a series of name changes in its long history. Its acquisition of Southern Desk Company in 1960 bolstered its production of institutional furniture for dormitories, classrooms, churches and laboratories.

In the following decades, contracts with government agencies, hotels, schools and hospitals brought its high-quality furniture to a global audience. U.S. Plywood-Champion Papers bought Drexel Enterprises in 1968, and it became Drexel Heritage Furnishings.

In 2014, the last Drexel Heritage plant, in Morganton, North Carolina, closed its doors. The company rebranded as Drexel in 2017.

The vintage Drexel furniture for sale on 1stDibs includes end tables designed by Edward Wormley, walnut side tables designed by Kipp Stewart and lots more.

The simple fact that everyone sleeps is great news for those in search of an antique, new or vintage bedroom set. A good night’s rest is a universal necessity, which means that there is an abundance of options to meet everyone’s tastes and decor styles.

While the design of beds was once largely informed by the availability of local materials, modern-day consumers can relish the freedom of mixing and matching their favorite furniture styles from around the globe. Springing for a European bedroom set might mean introducing a royalty-inspired resting haven to your home, one outfitted with a plush, elaborately adorned upholstered headboard that gives new meaning to the terms “king-” and “queen-size” beds. Mid-century modern bedroom sets, with their sleek and streamlined bed frames and unassuming walnut nightstands, might also defy notions of standard bedroom furniture given the venturesome design sensibilities that we’ve come to associate with the style.

Targeting the designs of a specific location lets you take a vacation every time you nap. Italian designers, who upholstered headboards and ashwood or cherry bed frames in varying fabrics and leathers, have introduced luxurious bedroom sets over the years, while the decoratively carved dark walnut antique bedroom sets designed in France in the Louis XVI style have never lost their allure centuries later.

For those who love to host, your guest rooms can treat visitors to a one-of-a-kind experience. Build an atmosphere, be it moody or bright, by pairing pieces that share a single color or commit to a specific era. Dazzle with the dark woods that define the dressing tables and armoires of the Art Deco era or immerse your guests in the glitz and wealth of mirrored finishes and bold color contrasts that characterize a Hollywood Regency bedroom set, a movement in design led by unsung interior decorator Dorothy Draper in the 1920s.

Whatever your needs might be, you should sleep in style. Find a wide-ranging collection of antique, new and vintage bedroom sets on 1stDibs.