Founded in 1977 in San Francisco, CA, Prowell Woodworks has long been defined
for its commitment to innovations in both design and methods of
construction, while offering a line of benchmark products in both
Landscape and Home Furnishings.
A graduate of Southern Illinois University in 1973, Charles studied
both Architecture and later, Design, in a department headed by
Buckminster Fuller.
Apprenticing since childhood in a family of home builders, woodworkers,
architects, and artist/illustrators, Charles founded CPW at 27 as
a format for artistic expression and structural innovations. As
a means to earn a living that is drawn by both purpose and a self-perpetuating
absorption until one day, perhaps well into his 90's, a life
well lived comes to an end in a pile of soft accepting sawdust.
But the continuum remains, in the form of Ben Prowell,
drawn to the shop as a toddler and the recipient of all
his father knows and furthered at the venerable
North Bennet St School of Furnituremaking, in Boston, MA. The
country's oldest woodworking school, located since 1885 in the same
building across the street from not only what was once Paul Revere's home, but also across the street from Ben Prowell's apartment at the time, or studio, or, well . . . it was actually not much more than a rabbet's barren. A cozy little closet in Boston's North End. Ben begins a lifetime pursuit into his own life of absorbing purpose, and over time the works that will come to establish a signature aesthetic will grow from the current early offerings at his personal website www.prowellfurniture.com, and eventually supercede the existing CPW line of furnishings. So have a look and feel free to contact Ben himself.
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A business is a toy. Created to provide purpose, absorption,
fascination, and happiness to one's life within a format that rewards
its founder with utter control over the accumulating decades, and
with a resilience to an ever-changing outlook.
But of course
CPW is beyond the scope of any one man. And
although this one man may actually pick up the phone and answer your
inquiry personally, or even reply to your emails, the scope of CPW
spreads with the ineluctable force of an ever-increasing demand.
CPW has a series of master guild woodworkers and their shops who've all completed a tutorial on the CPW methodology, while fine craftsman and furniture makers in their own right.
Every CPW product is created from start to finish by the same pair of hands. The same woodworker, uninterrupted, who begins your project, finishes your project.
