Furniture and mattresses share the showroom at Ambrose Furniture, where design staff offer decorating consultations alongside retail sales. The family business began in 1946 and retains a Kitty Hawk showroom alongside its other North Carolina stores. Italy's B&B Italia makes Mario Bellini's modular Camaleonda sofa, a 1970 design reissued by the company in 2020. At Shelburne Farms, Beeken Parsons makes commissioned furniture from local hardwoods in a studio inside the historic Farm Barn.
H.H. Ambrose opened this furniture business in Elizabeth City, North Carolina in 1946 after giving up life as a traveling preacher. His son Marion and Marion's wife Betty opened the Kitty Hawk store in 1984 and the Coinjock store in 1988. Their sons West and Barry Ambrose run all three today. The stores sell furniture and home decor with in-house design help, and a wheaten terrier named Moxie is the mascot.
Best for Furniture and mattresses with design help
Ambrose Furniture began in 1946, when H.H. Ambrose gave up life as a traveling preacher to open a furniture store in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The values he had preached about became the working philosophy of the business. The company says they remain in place more than 75 years later. In 1984 his son Marion and Marion's wife Betty opened the Kitty Hawk store on the Outer Banks. In 1988 they added the largest of the three stores at Coinjock in Currituck County. The stores now belong to Marion and Betty's sons, West and Barry Ambrose. Barry grew up in the business, napping in the front window as a toddler to promote mattress sales. He graduated from East Carolina University in 1983 with a degree in theatre arts, and he credits that training for the way the stores look. West started work at thirteen and helped build the current Elizabeth City location. He now handles operations from Coinjock. The company sells furniture and home decor in styles it groups as coastal or traditional. Modern rooms and rustic rooms are shown alongside. Its design staff work with customers on whole rooms, including the rental homes that fill the Outer Banks. Testimonials on its site come from second-home owners who have used the firm since the 1990s. A soft-coated wheaten terrier named Moxie serves as the official mascot. She greets shoppers at the Kitty Hawk store at 5125 North Croatan Highway, where Barry Ambrose is usually found.
Founded 1966 in Novedrate as C&B Italia by Piero Ambrogio Busnelli and Cesare Cassina, renamed B&B in 1973; HQ is a 1972 building by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Mario Bellini's modular Camaleonda sofa, launched 1970, was reissued in 2020.
Best for Camaleonda and modern sofas.
B&B Italia began in 1966 in Novedrate, in Italy's Como province, when Piero Ambrogio Busnelli started a furniture venture with Cesare Cassina under the name C&B Italia and ten employees. Busnelli had identified an opportunity in cold-forming polyurethane molding, a technology not yet widely applied to furniture production, and used it to build upholstered pieces industrially rather than through traditional frame-and-stuffing methods. In 1973 Busnelli bought out Cassina's stake and renamed the company B&B. The Novedrate headquarters is itself a design landmark: a 1972 building designed by a young Renzo Piano together with Richard Rogers, several years before the pair's Centre Pompidou in Paris. B&B's design output produced three Compasso d'Oro award winners — Mario Bellini's Le Bambole armchair (1972), Studio Kairos's Sisamo wardrobe system (1983), and Antonio Citterio's Sity sofa (1987) — alongside Bellini's modular Camaleonda sofa, launched in 1970 and shown at MoMA's 1972 'Italy: The New Domestic Landscape' exhibition. Camaleonda's cable-and-hook modular construction let owners reconfigure or disassemble seating sections; the design went out of production in 1979 and was reissued in 2020 using recycled materials.
Bartley's All in Wood is a fair-trade wood workshop at the Jamaica Deaf Village in Manchester, founded in 2011 by Lacey-Ann Bartley after her father's Bartley's Furniture (1981). It makes handmade, deaf-made wood gifts, home accents and hospitality pieces from recycled and sustainable material, and runs an apprenticeship programme.
Furniture makers Bruce Beeken and Jeff Parsons have hand-crafted custom furniture from local hardwoods at their studio in the historic Farm Barn at Shelburne Farms since 1983. Pieces are made to order for residential and institutional clients, arranged directly through the studio.
Courage My Love has operated in Toronto's Kensington Market since 1975, founded by Stewart and Patricia Scriver. The shop sells hand-picked vintage denim, cashmere and heritage garments alongside beads sourced from Java and Mexico and cultural artifacts ranging from masks to vintage furniture.
Founded in 1973 by Vittorio Livi in Italy's Marche region, Fiam Italia pioneered industrial curved-glass furniture — bent and cold-curved mirrors, tables and chairs — and still produces and sells from its Montelabbate showroom and outlet today.
Best for Curved-glass furniture and sculptural mirrors
Fiam Italia was founded in 1973 by Vittorio Livi in Italy's Marche region, and became the first furniture company to industrialize the shaping of glass into curved, three-dimensional forms rather than treating it purely as a flat, functional material. Early output centered on bevelled and curved mirrors, which were in high demand; through the 1980s the company expanded into glass tables and chairs, pioneering cold-curving and heat-bending techniques developed in-house. Over five decades Fiam has collaborated with an international roster of designers and architects to produce pieces that combine industrial glass-processing equipment with hand-finishing by skilled workers — a hybrid of factory-scale production and artisanal control. The company's outlet and showroom operate from Via Provinciale 57 in Montelabbate, in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, part of the Marche region long associated with Italian furniture and shoe manufacturing. Fiam remains a reference name in Italian glass design, continuing to build its identity around the technical and aesthetic possibilities of curved glass rather than diversifying into unrelated materials.
Founded in Sydney in 1981 by Warren Higgs; expanded to Melbourne in 1984 and built its own in-house design and visual-merchandising teams by 1987. Acquired by Amart Furniture in June 2025.
Best for Contemporary Australian furniture
Freedom was founded in Sydney in 1981 by Warren Higgs, and the business grew quickly enough that it opened its first Melbourne store within three years, in 1984. By 1987 the company had built its own in-house design department and one of Australia's first dedicated visual-merchandising teams, moving beyond a straightforward furniture-retail model toward developing its own product lines. Investment company Jamison Equity bought the business in 1991, and Freedom listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1996, the same year it expanded into New Zealand through franchisee Farmers Deka. In 1999 it acquired the Guests and Andersons furniture chains for roughly A$22.4 million in cash and stock, and in 2003 management took the company private again in a buyout backed by Steinhoff International, then also the company's supplier and largest shareholder. In June 2025, Freedom was acquired by Amart Furniture, a portfolio company of Quadrant Private Equity, folding it into a larger Australian furniture retail group after more than four decades as an independent brand.
Annankatu 5, 00120 Helsinki, Finland / Helsinki / Finland
Family furniture making in Jurva from 1963 (Eero Hakola); current Hakola Huonekalu Oy founded 1993 by Jari Hakola; sofas still made in the Jurva factory; three-floor Helsinki shop at Annankatu 5 (Finnish Wikipedia; MyHelsinki).
Best for Finnish sofas made in Jurva and shown across a three-floor Helsinki shop.
A working woodshop on Depot Street that has turned out handmade bowls, furniture and kitchenware in small batches since 1950, at prices pitched for any budget. Visitors can watch the woodworking in the factory-retail space or order the same pieces through the shop's Etsy storefront.
Best for Woodcraft, woodenware, furniture, kitchenware, handmade-gifts
Patio and Home has made handcrafted décor in San Miguel de Allende since 1965, working in ironwork, glass, wood and mirrors to produce lamps, lanterns, tables and chairs. The founders trace the craft to their grandparents, among the city's first artisans, and the shop now also offers interior and exterior design services.
Piero Melani Alabastri has made small and large alabaster objects since 1998 from Via Borgo Santo Stefano in Volterra, alongside custom furnishings that combine alabaster with wood, iron, glass and metal inserts and integrated lighting. Founder Piero Melani was born in Volterra in 1964.
Handcrafted furniture and home décor house founded in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1959, led by Graham and Kalani Raux. Operates a heritage gallery and boutique stores in restored colonial buildings across Colombo, alongside a design/production hub in Piliyandala.
Best for Colombo furniture and décor, tracing back to 1959
Raux Brothers was established in 1959 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and today is led by Graham and Kalani Raux. The business has grown from its original furniture roots into a broader home décor and design operation, with several boutique stores spread across Colombo, many housed in restored colonial-era buildings. It also maintains a Heritage gallery in Colombo and an 'Ideation hub' for design and manufacturing in Piliyandala.
Four-generation Ecuadorian family business tracing its furniture-making and restoration history to 1947. Its Retrochic line, launched in 2015, designs and restores fully handcrafted, hand-carved furniture in Cuenca, blending traditional craft with vibrant contemporary interiors.
Scott Jordan Furniture has custom-built solid hardwood furniture since 1980 from Pennsylvania cherry, Ohio and Indiana walnut, and Appalachian oak, with Eastern Linden dovetailed drawers and hand-rubbed natural oil and wax finishes. The shop, based at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, combines CAD/CAM design with precision CNC cutting and hand-finishing.
Best for Custom hardwood furniture for tight city spaces
Snyder's Furniture has sold handcrafted Amish furniture in Lancaster, PA since 1983, when Minnie Snyder started it from a quilt stand at a local farmer's market. Craftsmen build pieces by hand on family farms, including trestle tables, pedestal tables, sleigh beds, and live-edge tables.
Best for Handcrafted amish dining and bedroom furniture
Swiss furniture manufacturer founded in 1950 by Willi and Erika Fehlbaum in Birsfelden; became European licensee for Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson designs from Herman Miller starting in 1957.
Best for Swiss modernist design classics.
Vitra was founded in 1950 by Willi and Erika Fehlbaum, who took the company's name from the display cases, or vitrines, it originally produced as a shopfitting business near Basel, Switzerland. In 1956 the family moved production into a new office and factory in Birsfelden, where the firm remains headquartered as a Swiss family-owned company. A 1953 trip to New York introduced the Fehlbaums to the furniture of Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson; Willi negotiated a European manufacturing license with Herman Miller, and Vitra began producing Eames and Nelson designs in 1957, the deal that turned a fittings maker into a design-furniture manufacturer. The company later added its own campus across the German border in Weil am Rhein, including Frank Gehry's Vitra Design Museum (1989) and the Herzog & de Meuron-designed VitraHaus (2010). Vitra also runs a circular-economy retail arm, the Vitra Circle Store, giving showroom models, trade-fair pieces and other used furniture a second life; the Amsterdam-area outpost of that program operates from Zaandam, north of the city, while Vitra's B2B Amsterdam showroom is in the Houthavens district. Panton and Eames pieces remain part of the current range sold through Vitra's dealer and showroom network.
Windsor Chairmakers has produced hand-crafted fine furniture since 1987, including Windsor chairs, beds, tables and a line of Shaker furniture built from native woods such as tiger maple, cherry, white ash, black walnut and pine. Chairs use traditional joinery and epoxy in the joints, finished with a multi-layered process and a beeswax rub.
Best for Handcrafted windsor chairs and shaker furniture
Italian avant-garde furniture house founded 1954 in Nova Milanese by Aurelio Zanotta, collaborating with experimental designers to produce radical postmodern design.
Best for The Sacco beanbag original.
Aurelio Zanotta founded the furniture company in Nova Milanese in 1954, initially focusing on traditional upholstered pieces. The company rapidly shifted toward experimental design, commissioning forward-thinking Italian designers including the Castiglioni brothers, Joe Colombo, and Ettore Sottsass. By the 1960s and 1970s, Zanotta had become known for producing some of the world's most significant postmodern and radical design works. The Sacco armchair, designed in 1968 by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro, became an international icon—the first beanbag chair, filled with polystyrene balls that molded to the user's form. Other landmark pieces include the Mezzadro tractor stool by the Castiglioni brothers. Over its history, Zanotta has collaborated with over 140 designers from 18 countries and produced more than 550 products, with 336 works now held in permanent museum collections worldwide including the Triennale Design Museum Milan, Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris, and London's V&A.
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