I have been working in Red Hook since July 2000. I have a full wood shop where we make cabinets and furniture. I have also my design studio and a showroom with samples of my designs. We make scaled models of other pieces to show different configurations.

My shop/studio/showroom is located in a brick warehouse right on the water front, surrounded by a beautiful little park on two sides of the building. My office window faces the park and I never get tired of the changing landscape. The water, the sky and the green are constantly changing colors with the changing of seasons and the time of the day. It’s hard to believe this is also New York.

Red Hook is a great place to work. There are many other shops around: people that do metal work, stone work, glass work or other wood shops that specialize in doors and panels for example. Having all these resources around makes it easy to collaborate with other trades.

Red Hook was much more quiet when I moved my shop here. Now we have Fairway, Ikea, nice restaurants, cool little stores on Van Brunt Street and a growing community of artists and creative people in general that hang out in Baked during the day and in Sunny’s at night.

The Valentino park (my back yard…) has a kayak launch and there is a growing number of enthusiasts that come on a regular basis to get into the water.

But perhaps the most inspiring thing is to see the Statue of Liberty from my window. It’s a really pretty monument and has a powerful meaning.