HHC Centerpiece Table

Members and visitors to the newly renovated clubhouse at Omaha’s Happy Hollow Club find a small flight of stairs inside the main entrance. At the top of the stairs, this table holds an elaborate arrangement of fresh flowers as a greeting. The design challenge was to create a striking first impression on viewers seeing the table and flowers from below, while not allowing the table to compete with the complexity of the flowers. The solution was a very long under-bevel on the table top, complemented by the taper of the base, and a little flourish just at the juncture. On the visually massive black table, these few bold details create a very strong silhouette. The finish is the same dyed and sandblasted ash featured in the sofa table I made for the next room. In the center of the table is an inlaid stone disc to protect the wood from the moisture of a vase of flowers, like a giant coaster.

The construction of this piece involved a series of really fun technical challenges. I documented several of them with short videos on Instagram. (Follow me while you’re there!) Please excuse the tabs of clear packing tape in the images: they allowed me to remove and protect the stone until final delivery.

Design with Nancy Novak of Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture. Photo in situ by Dana Damewood Photography.