Dartbrook Rustic Goods

Dartbrook sits on NYS Route 9N as you drop into the hamlet of Keene from the High Peaks — a destination in itself for anyone outfitting a camp, a cabin, an inn, or a weekend place. It is the present-day home of a craft lineage running back more than a century: Albert Jaques began building rustic cedar furniture beside the Ausable River in the 1920s, taught the trade to his nephew Gil, who became a prominent rustic builder in his own right, who in turn taught his nephew George — Dartbrook's co-founder and lead craftsman, and a widely-published name in the field today. The work is built in the authentic Great Camp tradition — the late-19th-century vernacular of the Vanderbilt and Durant camps, in which local timber, bark, root, twig, and antler are made into furniture meant to last generations. Beds, seating, dressers and cabinets, dining tables and desks, chandeliers and lamps, all bench-made on premises. The rooms themselves are the work of another kind of craftsmanship. Co-owner Jay Haws designed windows for Macy's in Herald Square before opening Dartbrook, and that training shows in how things are composed: heritage American houses — Stickley, Old Hickory, Hancock & Moore, Lee Industries, Taylor King — set alongside antiques, folk art, beaded Moroccan chandeliers, stacks of Pendleton blankets, lighting and rugs from around the world, and the small things (the house balsam-fir fireplace incense has a small cult). Adirondack Life called the result "a Gilded Age meets new-fashioned style mecca," which is about right. A working assumption for visitors: pieces range from small accessories well under a hundred dollars to investment furniture in the five figures. Dartbrook's own work has gone to fine homes across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and the shop took home Adirondack Life's Readers' Choice Award in 2015. The shop has grown into a small family of properties on this stretch of 9N: Dartbrook Rustic Goods at 10923, the flagship; Dartbrook South, the dark-green building two doors down at 10913; Forty Six, the restaurant; and Dartbrook Lodge, the boutique hotel. Two of the four makes an afternoon. All four makes a day.