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Newly Refinished - Mid-Century Modern “Riviera” Highboy Birch Dresser

About the Item

Condition: Expertly Refinished With over 15 years of experience, our workshop has followed a careful process of restoration, showcasing our passion and creativity for vintage designs that can seamlessly be incorporated with many interior decors. Enjoy! :) This expertly refinished Mid-Century Modern Highboy from Heywood Wakefield is part of their celebrated “Riviera” line, one of the company’s most iconic collections of the 1950s. Designed in solid birch wood, the dresser highlights the sculpted, softly curved drawer fronts and rounded edges that defined the Riviera aesthetic, combining elegance with everyday functionality. Its warm honey-toned finish beautifully brings out the shimmering grain patterns, adding both brightness and sophistication to any space. With four generous drawers, this piece balances form and function in true Heywood Wakefield style. More than just storage, it represents an important chapter in American design history. Fun Historical Fact: Introduced in the late 1940s, the Riviera line was a breakthrough collection that solidified Heywood Wakefield’s reputation as a leader in modern American furniture. The line’s streamlined curves and light birch finishes symbolized optimism and progress in postwar America, making it a staple in new suburban homes. Today, Riviera pieces are some of the most collectible and celebrated designs from the company’s mid-century legacy.

Creator:
Heywood-Wakefield Co. (Manufacturer, Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 45.25 in (114.94 cm)Width: 32 in (81.28 cm)Depth: 19 in (48.26 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Birch
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1950-1959
Date of Manufacture:
c.1950’s
Condition:
Refinished.
Seller Location:
Los Angeles, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU3014346535512

Shop All Heywood-Wakefield Co.

Heywood-Wakefield Co.

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 furniture — chairs, tables, dressers and more — 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, the Heywoods 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, Heywood-Wakefield brought in designer Gilbert Rohde, a champion of the Art Deco style. Before departing in 1932 to lead Herman Miller — the prolific Michigan manufacturer that helped transform the American home and office — 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 vintage Heywood-Wakefield desks, vanities, tables and other furniture for sale on 1stDibs.