Speaking about Oak Hill, N.Y., in the Catskill Mountains, where he and his wife, Hannah, and their two young children live, and where he is just moving into a timber-frame shop he built, Brian Persico says, “We live up here to be in the woods. I love trees in any way, shape, or form.”

After studying industrial design at Pratt Institute in New York City and settling in Brooklyn in 2009, Persico thought about entering his field of study, but found himself spending much of his time working with wood and building furniture. Early on, he made himself a dining table. “I thought it would be the last dining table I’d ever need,” he said. But before it was a week old, someone bought it.

When he met Hannah, who was then working at the prominent New York City furniture gallery BDDW, she saw all the pieces he had built and told him, “You have a line of furniture.” Ever since, the pieces he’s built for himself and his family have nearly all served as design prototypes and fueled the business. He and Hannah now collaborate on the designs.

The more furniture he makes, it seems, the more appetite he has for working wood by hand. “I love dovetailing the hell out of a piece,” he says, “even if I’m going to paint it. I tried dovetailing by machine, but I’m a woodworker because I like to dovetail by hand; I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

And even while building a house and raising young children, Persico makes quite a lot of furniture—40 or 50 chairs each year, he estimates, along with settees, counter stools, tables, and cabinets. “Life these days is hectic but good,” he says. “I’m sprinting everywhere.”

Bowyer’s benefit.

When a customer asked Persico to build chairs with rawhide seats, he had never used the material before. But he had built bows with natural-sinew strings, so he dove in. And now he’s a convert. “Rawhide makes an incredibly strong seat,” he says. “You’ll find a 200-year-old chair and the joints are all loose, but it’s held together by its rawhide seat.”

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