21st Century Bronze-Plated Steel Dressing Bench, the Dumb Valet

Perugia, Italy-based Benedikt Bolza Design is an architecture studio and design firm founded by architect, interior designer and furniture designer Count Benedikt Bolza. A range of bespoke lighting and furniture — including armchairs, benches, console tables and cocktail tables — is designed at the firm and produced by Bolza’s furniture brand, B.B. for Reschio.

Bolza, whose family is of Italian origin but whose title owes to aristocratic roots in Austria-Hungary, was raised near Munich in Germany. His path toward a career in design began with his parents.

In the 1990s, Count Antonio Bolza and Countess Angelika Bolza purchased the Castello di Reschio estate in the rolling hills of Umbria. At the time, their son was studying at the University of Westminster in London to become an architect. In 1999, he tackled the project of restoring the estate farmhouses — many of them in ruins — and oversaw the design and rebuilding of the structures. By 2013, Count Benedikt Bolza had rebuilt 22 of the 50 homes, transforming them into luxurious villas complete with interiors that he created. 

Bolza, his wife, Donna Nencia Corsini, and their five children moved into the estate’s derelict 10th-century-era castle and lived there for years, eventually securing funding from a silent partner to restore it. In 2021, the former castle opened as a 36-bedroom hotel, which afforded guests the opportunity to experience Bolza's luxurious furniture in the spaces for which it was created — everything from the brass vanities made in Florence to the decorative objects mined from local marketplaces. 

Bolza collaborated with nearby Italian artisans to create the hotel’s furnishings through his brand, B.B. for Reschio, which had existed in some sense prior to the hospitality property project but was formalized as the company’s founder became tasked with designing furnishings for the vast Reschio estate restoration. B.B. for Reschio now regularly participates in design fairs.

Each of the opulent B.B. for Reschio furnishings that are custom-made for clients as well as those for Hotel Castello di Reschio are born of a meld of Baroque and classical Italian influences and draw on contemporary styles, too. The items are constructed entirely by hand, with local carpenters, stonemasons and other artisans and craftsmen sourcing Italian leathers and woven fabrics from the region as well as other materials like travertine, marble and oak.

Bolza stresses that he doesn't set out to make luxury furniture but rather designs to the proportions of the space, as the ancients did. “Bespoke furniture was never a luxury," he told Forbes. "It was simply the natural order of things."

On 1stDibs, find Benedikt Bolza Design seating, tables, garden furniture and more.