In 1999, Keith Fritz began his fine furniture business in a garage on Capitol Hill. When it came to doing the finishing work, space limitations forced him to carry his custom-made creations into the back alley. Inevitably, a car would drive by and blow dust all over everything. But business grew, Fritz bought a bigger studio and then an even bigger one, and in January, he’ll be honored with a solo show in a gallery in Georgetown.
“Keith’s furniture is a good bridge between antique furniture and contemporary art,” says James Alefantis, gallery owner of Strand on Volta, where Fritz’s dining room tables will be presented on pedestals and his mirrors on walls. Alefantis plans to display one seven-foot circular tabletop of marbled Macassar ebony with silver inlay by hanging it on a wall, too.
Fritz fashions his fine furniture, which might range in style from Biedermeier to ’40s French, in a living/work space that was built in 1923. The building, a former hardware store in the Petworth area of Northwest Washington, includes a vintage tin ceiling, an aged and weathered hardwood floor and muted yellow walls. It’s an Old World jumble of wooden jigs, chisels, hand planes, pieces of furniture in progress and the scent of sawdust lingering in the air. Ford hubcaps adorning one wall and well-worn sofas add funky touches.
It’s here that Fritz and a handful of other full-time artisans custom tailor dining tables that grace the homes of clients including Hillary and Bill Clinton, Judy McGrath, the chairman and chief executive officer of MTV, and Chris O’Donnell, the actor. Fritz works often with top interior designers including Elizabeth Hague, Barbara Hawthorn, Joe Davis, Lisa Bartolomei, and Robert Brown and Todd Davis.
It’s in the Genes
The artisan, who endearingly describes himself as “271/2 years old,” specializes in dining tables, which range from $6,800 for a simple basic 60-inch round French walnut table that would seat seven to $25,000 for an intricate, pie matched race track with two compass rose star inlays and an inlaid border in an exceptionally rare wood like marbled Macassar that would seat 14. Mirrors, another specialty, average $3,600, depending on the wood and details.
Fritz crafts his handmade masterpieces in rare woods, such as Brazilian rosewood, English yew, French walnut crotch, Aspen stump and wenge, that are too exotic for most big factories to use.
His office houses a library of design books, liturgical prints, a walnut partners’ desk from a monastery and a pie safe that is a family heirloom. Its tin panels are punched with the classic American star pattern and it’s signed by Maurice A. Fritz, whom he describes as “my grandpa’s grandpa.”
“I don’t know if he made it or if he just signed it,” says Fritz, who grew up on a farm in Siberia, Indiana. It wouldn’t be surprising if his great, great grandfather had been a woodworker. Both his father and grandfather are talented carpenters.
“I come from a very self-sufficient family,” Fritz says. His father, Robert Fritz, built the house they lived in and his mother, Theresa Cox, made their clothes and curtains and was a wonderful cook.
“Most of the food we ate was grown in our garden or we’d hunt it out of the woods,” Fritz says. The “woods” were the 140 mostly wooded acres that his father owns and the adjacent 200 acres that his grandfather owns. Those woods were also the laboratory that fed Fritz’s talent.
When he was only 15, Fritz dreamt up the most wonderful piece of furniture that he could imagine and then spent 1,200 hours building it. This incredibly intricate walnut Bombay Chippendale secretary, which features inlaid wood and 12 secret compartments, won him first prize in a statewide competition.
“I made it from trees Dad and Grandpa and I cut and dried on our family farm,” he says.
Fritz came to Washington to study philosophy at Catholic University of America and seriously considered entering the priesthood. But upon graduation in 1999, he decided instead to open a small shop, and sales soared when customers saw his soulful way of working with wood.
“I’m hyperactive, but whenever I do woodwork, I’m mellow, balanced. It keeps me sane. There’s a great satisfaction at the end of the day to see what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished knowing that that piece will become part of the legacy of the family we made it for,” the artisan says.
Keith Fritz has clearly found his calling.
