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Dimensions: 29 1/4 x 43 x 43 in. (74.3 x 109.2 x 109.2 cm)

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Provenance: Descended in the family of Charles Sumner Greene

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Literature: ILLUSTRATED
Randell L. Makinson, Greene & Greene: Furniture and Related Designs, Salt Lake City, 1979, p. 14
Randell L. Makinson, Greene & Greene: The Passion and the Legacy, Salt Lake City, 1998, p. 18
Randell L. Makinson and Thomas A. Heinz, Greene & Greene: Creating a Style, Salt Lake City, 2004, p. 79
Randell L. Makinson and Thomas A. Heinz, Greene & Greene: The Furniture, Salt Lake City, 2005, forthcoming

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Notes: Thomas Sumner Greene, Charles and Henry's father, desired that both of his sons become architects in the tradition of their great-great-grandfather, Thomas Waldron Sumner. To this end, he enrolled his boys in the Manual Training School of Washington University in St. Louis. Charles, as the eldest, was enrolled first, in 1883. Henry joined him there the following year.

The Manual Training School, established by Calvin Milton Woodward in 1880, offered an expanded curriculum that included two hours daily of practical training in woodworking, metal working and tool making. The school emphasized an understanding of materials and construction, which while providing a useful set of skills, served to foster an appreciation of hand workmanship and the innate qualities of a variety of materials. These Arts & Crafts precepts would become integral to the Greenes' architectural and furniture designs.

The table offered here, a gift made by Charles for his fiancée, Alice Gordon White, around 1899, is significant because it is the first furniture design known to have been executed by either of the architects, and illustrates in particular Charles' creative facility and handiness. A simple square-topped breakfast table, it makes use of a number of different types of wood, with a stepped base of cedar, a central pedestal of Douglas fir, and a parquetry patterned top of oak, mahogany and birch. The geometric pattern of the top is believed to have been made up with samples of flooring from various architectural projects the Greenes had underway in Pasadena at the time. Utilitarian and free from historical precedent, this lovingly crafted table was the first piece of Greene & Greene furniture.