Rare Oversized Wedge Chair and Ottoman by Thayer Coggin, Jack Lenor Larsen

Jack Lenor Larsen was a celebrated American mid-century modern textile designer born in Seattle. He fostered connections throughout the design and architecture industries beginning in 1950, and today, his influential eponymous design company is widely recognized for its muted hand-spun textured textiles. Larsen manufactured fabrics all over the world for more than six decades, using both traditional and modern weaving techniques.

Larsen initially studied in the architecture program at the University of Washington before he quickly realized he was instead interested in furniture design and interiors. He earned his MFA in 1949 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art — the go-to art school for design stars of the mid-20th century. The following year he moved and opened a studio in New York City where he launched his career. 

For one of his first commissions, which was to design curtains for the Lever House — a New York City icon designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois — Larsen created a linen and gold metal-themed weave to complement the building’s famed glass walls. He designed similarly magnificent textiles for the Phoenix Opera House, the Wolf Trap Theater and more.

Nowhere is Larsen’s profound impact on textile design more evident than at LongHouse Reserve, his house in East Hampton, New York. Modeled after a seventh-century Shinto Shrine, the home and its surrounding sculpture gardens opened to the public in 1992. 

Larsen built LongHouse Reserve in collaboration with Charles Forberg. The property features sliding panels that showcase the revered artisan’s fabrics as well as works by Lucie Rie, Wharton Esherick, and Edward Wormley. The gardens feature sculptures by Willem de Kooning, Sol LeWitt and Yoko Ono.

Larsen had a solo exhibit at the Louvre in 1981. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. 

Find vintage Jack Lenor Larsen lounge chairs, sofas, and dining room chairs on 1stDibs.

Few friendships last a lifetime, but Milo Baughman (1923–2003) and Thayer Coggin (1922–2003) were united by their desire to craft American furniture with timeless heirloom appeal. Today vintage Thayer Coggin sofas, coffee tables, alluring chrome-framed chairs and other furnishings are recognized as masterpieces of good design and remain highly sought after by collectors near and far.

Having both served in the military during World War II and coming from humble backgrounds — Coggin from Denton, North Carolina, and Baughman from Goodland, Kansas (but raised in California) — they shared a passion for simple, modern design in home furnishings. In 1953, after showing his prescient designs to a number of companies (who turned him down) in the furniture center of High Point, North Carolina, Baughman decided to pay a last-minute visit to Coggin, who had just founded his eponymous brand. After a nearly hour-long meeting in which Coggin shot out of his seat exclaiming he had never seen anything like Baughman's work, the two men shook hands. They would be friends and collaborators for the next 50 years.

Coggin let Baughman pursue his singular vision, while the Thayer Coggin company benefited from its close relationship with the ever more prominent Baughman, the manufacturer’s lead designer and an architect of California modernism who also collaborated with Drexel Furniture, Glenn of California and others during his career.

In 1968, New York Times critic Rita Reif hailed Baughman’s work for its elegance and sophistication. “With this furniture,” she wrote of his new collection, Environment 70 produced by Thayer Coggin, “who needs a decorator?” Baughman’s name became synonymous with sleekly modern, comfortable furniture the whole family could enjoy — stylish seating upholstered with impossibly cozy bouclé fabric and dashing case pieces that reflected the venturesome sensibility associated with mid-century modernism as well as the functionality of the Bauhaus.

Although its founder died in 2003, Thayer Coggin remains an esteemed family-run brand in High Point. Each item of furniture is bench-made by a single craftsperson to ensure “continuity among related pieces,” the company says, and comes in a vast array of upholstery fabrics, wood and metal finishes. Like the friendship that defined it, Thayer Coggin furniture is built to last.

Find a unique collection of new and vintage Thayer Coggin furniture today on 1stDibs.