Crafting a legacy out of wood

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:01]It's a family business that's grown to be as strong as the mightiest of trees.

[00:00:06]Here's Mira Nakashima.

[00:00:08]So, here it says sold.

[00:00:12]>> Yes.

[00:00:14]Yeah, I have mixed feelings about that.

[00:00:18]Walking with Mira Nakashima through her wood pile is like visiting with family.

[00:00:23]It's really nice that it's sold and I know the client and I know it'll have a good home, but these boards have been here for so long and I I did sort of get attached to them.

[00:00:34]Nakashima grew up here on the grounds of her company, Nakashima Woodworkers, in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

[00:00:42]I think Dad built this pretty much with his own two hands. I mean, it was this was the first building. He couldn't afford to hire builders.

[00:00:49]Her father, the late George Nakashima, who built that home and this business, is considered a giant of 20th century furniture design and a leader of the American craft movement. Dad said, you create a good design, it should be a good design forever. You shouldn't have to change it just because it's a different style or a different fashion that's going on at the time.

[00:01:13]Sunday Morning visited him in 1989.

[00:01:17]My feeling about a fine piece of timber is that it should be realized to its fullest possibility and beauty.

[00:01:33]George Nakashima's designs were renowned for their embrace of nature in all its glorious imperfection.

[00:01:45]Who is taking lead, the woodworker or the wood? Well, it's a collaboration.

[00:01:50]There are little nuances that happen.

[00:01:52]Sometimes there is knots and sometimes there is knot holes and sometimes there is cracks that need butterflies, so you go with the flow.

[00:02:01]And like the meandering edges of these pieces, the path for Nakashima Woodworking hasn't been in a straight line.

[00:02:09]Born in 1905 in the Pacific Northwest, George was a rising star in architecture. He studied at MIT and with luminaries around the world.

[00:02:22]But in 1942, he and his family were sent to an internment camp in Idaho as part of the forced relocation of [music] 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

[00:02:35]It was very very hard cuz uh my daughter was only about 6 weeks old.

[00:02:43]While in the camp, Nakashima retrained himself to handcraft much-needed [music] furniture for his young family. He had to use whatever materials was at at hand and it was leftover construction material. It was packing crates. After their release, the Nakashimas moved to Pennsylvania. And what's really beautiful is when the sunset decides to light up the sky.

[00:03:08]Out of the woods here, they built this complex, now a national historic landmark. I was four or five. I remember when we first came here, it was all covered with honeysuckle and poison ivy and Dad had to carry us in. We didn't have a place to live, so we lived in this army tent for several months. After Mira graduated from Harvard and started a family of her own, she began working here full-time under her father right up until his death in 1990. We were very concerned that the business would not survive. Were you scared?

[00:03:41]Well, yeah, it was difficult. I don't know if it was scary, but a lot of people, because my father was no longer around to put his signature on the furniture, canceled their orders.

[00:03:54]But she pressed on and her business flourished, not only producing from her father's iconic designs, but also designing her own pieces.

[00:04:03]You weren't worried that they'd be compared to your father's.

[00:04:07]Well, if you worry about it, you wouldn't do it.

[00:04:09]Um >> [laughter] >> The process is still similar to when George was running things.

[00:04:16]Right down to the wood, mostly from undesirable walnut trees. Dad used to call himself a rag picker because uh you know, people didn't want their trees and then he would make something beautiful out of them. But it was also a spiritual thing for him because he said uh he's giving trees a second life.

[00:04:35]Those trees take time to find their second life.

[00:04:39]Around a year for an average custom piece.

[00:04:42]So, somebody comes here, sits across from you to talk about a prospective table, they better be prepared to wait. Yeah, anybody who's used to instant gratification uh doesn't come to Nakashima's.

[00:04:56]Or they have to develop a different way of thinking.

[00:05:00]Nakashima pieces are not for everyone with prices starting in the thousands and going way up from there.

[00:05:08]After all, this is handcrafted from the initial drawing to the finishing and a final signature by Mira herself.

[00:05:26]Toshi? Yes.

[00:05:27]One of Mira's handful of employees is her grandson, Toshi. And what's it like working with your grandmother? That's great. I mean, there are perks.

[00:05:37]>> You don't have to say that.

[00:05:38]>> No, it's true. I mean, you give me tea and cookies and pie and >> [laughter] >> I'm very lucky to, you know, always have been surrounded with beautiful work and beautiful furniture and intelligent and smart and good craftsmen.

[00:05:52]Another branch to fill out the tree planted by the Nakashima family patriarch 80 years [music] ago.

[00:06:02]Aha.

[00:06:03]Whenever I go into one of the wood [music] storages, I feel like he's still here. He's still watching us.

[00:06:14]And whenever we have, you know, administrative kind of problems, we think, "What would George do? Would he like this or not?"

[00:06:22]He's still He's still with us.