Blond ambition: Collectors crave honey-colored furniture of the past

If Lana Turner could have been a chair, she might have been the M 154 C from Heywood-Wakefield.

Chic, curvaceous and kissed with a touch of Clairol blond, the M 154 C was the embodiment of sleek sophistication for the World War II generation.

Born near the end of the Great Depression, hotter than hair cream in the '40s and '50s, and stone-cold dead by the late 1960s, Heywood-Wakefield was as popular in its day as country furniture has been in the last decade. Its streamlined, honey-colored looks were as optimistic as the New Deal, as egalitarian as Eisenhower and as space-age as Sputnik.

Now the mid-century look is finding new life in the '90s. Collectors are scouring thrift and antiques shops for original pieces. And a Miami company recently began offering reproductions of many of the most popular Heywood-Wakefield styles.

Stanley Kroiz, a Baltimore dealer in '50s-era home furnishings, says the time may be right for a Heywood-Wakefield revival.

"Its first big moment was after the second World War," Mr. Kroiz says. Then, as now, people were hungry for change in their lives. "We'd been living with dark mahogany and cherry furniture forever and ever. Then this came out at popular prices. It was a new color, a new shape and the world was ready for it."

For several years, trend trackers have been talking about the return of modern furniture from the mid-'30s to the mid-'60s. Classic works by modern masters such as Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Gio Ponti and George Nelson now fetch handsome prices in upscale boutiques. But while these pedigreed pieces are out of reach for most ordinary collectors, Heywood-Wakefield has always offered a more affordable alternative.

Founded in 1826 in Gardner, Mass., the Heywood-Wakefield Co. was one of the first furniture manufacturers to make modern design available to the masses. Starting in the early 1930s, the company began forging partnerships with some of the nation's leading industrial designers -- Gilbert Rohde, who designed clocks for Herman Miller; Russel Wright, known for his American Modern dinnerware; and Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, an automotive designer for Chrysler.

The furniture produced during this period was notable for its simple shapes, steam-bent curves and opaque blond finishes, which ranged from wheat to champagne to platinum. Sold in better department and furniture stores across the country, it combined elements of art deco, modern and Scandinavian styles and helped define "the look" for a generation of young home-makers.

It also spawned countless imitators.

By the 1960s, the streamlined look had fallen out of favor, largely due to the influx of cheap knock-offs," says Ken Rower, a vintage furniture dealer in West Palm Beach, Fla., who is something of an expert on Heywood-Wakefield. "I think the look just got old. . . . It rose rapidly, and as the '50s died and changed -- as the country lost its innocence -- the furniture went the same way."

Seven years ago, when Leonard Riforgiato began searching for Heywood-Wakefield furniture, it was selling for peanuts in thrift shops and at garage sales. A one-time jazz musician, Mr. Riforgiato owns the South Beach Furniture Co., which specializes in modern furniture from the '40s and '50s. In the late 1980s, modern styles were just starting to catch on again with younger collectors, many of whom weren't around when the furniture first was made. The solid construction, timeless design and relatively low cost -- combined with a bit of nostalgia -- made Heywood-Wakefield particularly appealing.

"I found that people would buy this stuff whenever I could find it," Mr. Riforgiato says.

As prices rose and supplies became more scarce, Mr. Riforgiato started investigating the possibility of reproducing the furniture on a large scale. The Heywood-Wakefield Co., at one time the nation's oldest continuously operating furniture manufacturer, had never matched its earlier success. In the late '70s, plagued by lagging sales and labor difficulties, it declared bankruptcy. The company was liquidated in 1982.

In 1992, Mr. Riforgiato formed a partnership with New York investment banker Andrew Capitman, a Miami native whose mother, Barbara, had been instrumental in saving the South Beach historic district. This January the partners completed their acquisition of the Heywood-Wakefield name and logo. They now are reproducing 19 of the company's most popular designs, including the M 154 C dining chair with its dog-biscuit-shaped back; the butterfly extension table, which features triple

wishbone legs; a set of three nesting occasional tables; a seven-drawer "kneehole" desk; and upholstered pieces with boxy, welted cushions.

The new furniture, manufactured in Massachusetts and North Carolina using some of the same 50-year-old techniques, is virtually indistinguishable from the old, except for a lighter finish on the traditional blond birch wood, Mr. Riforgiato says.