![]() ![]() Champion sold Drexel Heritage to Dominick International Corporation, a private New York brokerage and investment banking firm, in August 1977. As a subsidiary of Champion, the company became Drexel Heritage Furnishings, Inc. Plywood-Champion Papers bought Drexel Enterprises. 1960 Drexel Furniture became Drexel Enterprises, Inc., and the following year it acquired the Southern Desk Company, manufacturer of a broad line of institutional furniture and equipment for laboratories, libraries, classrooms, dormitories, and churches. In time, the company acquired other furniture plants, including the Table Rock Furniture Company in 1951 and the Heritage Furniture Company and Morganton Furniture Company in 1956. 1903 and began making fine furniture in a small factory near Morganton in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s pretty interesting seeing the different pieces, the fabrics and suggested layouts.The Drexel Furniture Company was incorporated on 10 Nov. For posterity (and because Pam over at Retro Renovation archives these too, which I will send her way) I went ahead and scanned the entire catalog. One of the things that I did keep was the original Perennian catalog from 1962. I very, very rarely see Perennian furniture out in the wild – but interestingly, Tricia over at Modchester (in her fancy Rochester mid-century house) inherited a beautiful group of Perennian furniture from the original owners of her place. Ultimately, we kept one of the end tables, and Grandma wanted the others for her new apartment after moving out. The living room also has several Perennian pieces as well – a three-part coffee table set and two end tables. In the end, my aunt took the dining room set to a new house she bought, so this problem went away on it’s own, fortunately. Interestingly, the fact that this furniture wasn’t worth “a lot” became a point of contention – my grandmother and aunt insisted they were worth more than an appraiser said. Much nicer and higher quality than vintage Acclaim and Broyhill Brasilia, for instance. ![]() It’s also very nice, sturdy, high quality, mostly solid wood furniture, which is typical of Heritage. In spite of the subdued looks, it is very mid-century. Perennian furniture represented a bridge between very contemporary mid-century furniture designs from makers like Knoll (who produced Eames, Saarien, Noguchi and others) and the more traditional furniture that Heritage had been known for previously (and is known for today.) The furniture featured subdued but modern lines and made extensive use of woods such as walnut, pecan, and wormy chestnut. Perennian isn’t a very “hot” vintage mid-century item, precisely because it wasn’t very avant-garde for its time and therefore stand out as must-have mid-century for collectors today. Heritage today is known as Drexel Heritage (a combination made in the late 1950s, though for a time they were still marketed separately.) In the living room and dining room spaces, they purchased higher end Heritage furniture, from a collection called Perennian. They shied away from “traditional” furniture and lines. My grandparents were no slouches when it came to purchasing durable goods for the house – they saved up and purchased things that were nice, and generally contemporary for their time. As there were large stands of now-dead chestnut that had imperfections, it was marketed as “wormy chestnut” and used as an accent piece in a lot of furniture until the supplies were exhausted, making use of what would otherwise have been considered undesirable lumber. Wormy chestnut is just chestnut wood that was harvested after the trees were infested with bugs from being killed by the chestnut blight in the middle of the 20th century. This particular piece is mostly walnut with “wormy chestnut” insets on the doors. The pieces are all hardwood with a variety of accents. The Perennian line is a bridge collection between traditional style and full midcentury modern and takes a number of cues from Danish furniture. This particular one came from Los Angeles and there were chairs from the same set that I’m in the process of reupholstering as well. This furniture is not super common, so it took some patience and waiting for a piece to come available online. This is one of the buffets from the Heritage Perennian furniture collection. It may look a little familiar to those who read the blog – it’s the same one my grandparent’s had here for over 50 years. One thing we did pick up recently is this beautiful midcentury buffet. I’ve been pretty remiss in posting, but I’ve got a lot of stuff to share on here.
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