Johns Congdon’s Alienor Writing Desk Places First
by Nancy Wood,
November 3, 2011, page 12.....

On September 24, Johns Congdon Furniture Design of Charlotte won first place in a design competition at the Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking 2011 Show sponsored by the Vermont Wood Manufacturer’s Association. The award winning Alienor Writing Desk was entered in the custom furniture category. The piece was designed by Giovanna Brunini Congdon and built by Johns Congdon. The desk uses highly figured sapele pomelle wood with custom-designed sterling silver hardware crafted by Timothy Grannis of Burlington.
Johns Hopkins Congdon II, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, has been designing and making high-end custom furniture for over 30 years. He said, “Originally a house designer/builder, I have been a custom furniture maker since 1976 with clients across the country. I learned my trade by studying the early masters via books and museums, building classical pieces for many years, and now with designs created by Giovanna, my wife, I am working in a contemporary mode. Giovanna has no building experience but a great design eye, and this enables her to create pieces that challenge my construction paradigms, with the result being work that is classical in essence and built with the highest level of skills I can attain, but, at the same time, very present in the design world. We are having a good time together combining our talents, and we both couldn’t make it happen without each other.”
Giovanna, who is a native Vermonter, described the inspiration for the Alienor Writing Desk: “I am a history nut, and being married to Johns has provided fun opportunities to research historical figures. His ancestral medieval grandmother was Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II. Her French name is Alienor. She was a dynamo in the world of early feminism and owned more land than the king. Her court was regarded throughout France as a unique center of intellectual thought; her ladies held reading groups and set the standard for early chivalry. Alienor required all men who wished to appear at her court to be clean-shaven and bathed! It’s hard to get a grasp on how forward thinking she was, but it’s true… she was not only a beauty but a mind to be reckoned with. So when I set out to design a lady’s writing desk with a French influence, Alienor was the perfect name to bestow on it, a lady for the 12th century and the 21st.”
The Congdons moved to Charlotte in 1993 from central Vermont and built the first phase of their home on Spear Street. Johns said, “At that time the shop was the first floor of the home, old-world European style. In 2005, we built the existing separate shop and remodeled our home. We have always designed and built our own homes, with labor help of course, and Giovanna puts her special talent into the interiors.”
Three of the four Congdon children attended and graduated from CCS. Their eldest daughter, Holly Congdon Menguc, graduated from CVU and Middlebury College. Their youngest, Ming Fen, is a CVU sophomore who is applying for a year abroad in 2012 through the YES program, which hopes to further outreach between the USA and Muslim speaking nations. Their two boys attended and graduated from the Vermont Commons School. Johns Congdon III is a senior photography major at Rhode Island School of Design, and Joseph Congdon is a sophomore international relations major at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
Johns is the current president of the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers. The “two driving goals” that motivate his and Giovanna’s work, as described on their website, johnscongdon.com, are “the practice of furniture design as a contemporary art, and the creation of pieces arrived at through green and sustainable practices, each as an original conception with meticulous construction. We hope our art, both in furniture design and the design of architectural components, will invite you to explore the creative process with us.”