The first work was carving — acanthus, laurel, lattice — cut for other people's frames. Assembly came next, then upholstery, then finishing, until everything a piece needed happened under one roof and a Casa Bella piece could be made from rough stock to polished surface without leaving the building.
What has not changed is where the work happens. The same workshop, the same benches, and in several cases the same families — a carver who trained under the man who trained him, now training somebody else.
What has changed is the drawing. The catalogue that left this workshop in its first decades was unambiguously classical. The catalogue that leaves it now runs from that classical work through to Studio CB, and the same hands make both.
A piece moves along the benches in the same order it always has: carved, jointed, polished, upholstered, finished. None of it is faster than buying a container of finished furniture, and that is the point.
Workshop photography is still to be shot — the images on this page are placeholders.
The direction of the work is towards fewer, larger, quieter pieces — sculptural rather than decorated, and drawn for rooms with architecture of their own. The Archive runs the other way: old drawings pulled forward, built the way the workshop builds now.
Neither is a change of material. Solid stock, hand-applied finishes and joinery that carries load are not a style, and they are not up for revision.
Photographs settle very little. Seat depth, the weight of a drawer, how a finish behaves under afternoon light — these are decided in the room, in a few minutes, and not on a screen.