Main Street, Wyoming; 903; Thomas Molesworth: Interior Pioneer

The. Best force for true ghost golf ball from the king of well. He was a genius. His designs were awesome captured something about Wyoming. He was a Jew spy to. Be with me in a tree. On a rustic quest of the truth. Anything from. The. As far as for troop goes Thomas will fall through with the king of Westerfield. True.

He was a genius design for awesome captured something about Wyoming. He was a Jew spider who he with leaking energy behind a rustic Western for the truth and he just because. He was an artist among US forces are going to live long. Driving that. Route I would stay in the. Us sing a song about highway elms of the little town street below. Down the road. Means to Middle earth the same thing as chance road. Baggy clothes. You know. Will you gut your feet

down a main street. Car. The paintings of Yellowstone and the charisma of Buffalo Bill Cody drew the first tourists to Wyoming and when the crowds arrived they made themselves at home inside rustic lodges and dude ranch. The most remarkable outposts were Buffalo Bills Pashka TB and the manmade wonders of Yellowstone National Park. When you walk into a free fall it is grand as Grand can be its big tall ceilings lots of Burl. And huge walking fireplaces. And. I think for the traveler It was spectacular to come across that land. And come into that. Big grand place that kind of match the landscape.

Right. From the turn of the century on the rugged outdoor West was rapidly settled by a wave of visitors and transplants. But the newly constructed interior west. The space is created within the state's growing number of lodges and branches. Had yet to be fully explored. Pioneering these rooms Gates would require a blend of cowboy moxie and an art school sophistication. And Thomas Molesworth arrived in Cody with both. Molesworth would become the Buffalo Bill of furniture a visionary who brought the Wild West. Inside he devised he came up with an entire look. He put all the stuff together to come up with the bowls with look which no one ever has done before before since he's kind of the grandfather. So my take on it is he did a good job. Ellis that's rusted. Thomas Canada Molesworth was born in Kansas in 1890 the son of a

preacher who resettled his family on a modest spread near Billings Montana. From an early age Molesworth left the rugged surroundings if you will his creativity. He had an appreciation and a skill a skill for our little talent for us. So he was basically an artist. Molesworth was a ranch kid with a weakness for Charlie Russell paintings and in 1908 he dusted himself off and enrolled in art school. He had immersed himself in the Chicago Institute of Arts. And for those a done Chicago a street of Arts at the time was probably the leader in the nation in decorative arts. So it really was that incubator for taste and refinement. But it was also an opportunity for him to learn to to draw on pay to do other things as well so it was I suppose a golden opportunity.

Molesworth thrived in Chicago but his time at the Art Institute was cut short his father suffered some financial real reverses. You know and I think that what brought him back to Montana so Molesworth was his father told him to come home. From school that he would be another Charlie Russell Molesworth took a job at Rowe furniture in Billings. There he examined the construction of all kinds of interior fixtures from the store bought to the early rustic most of the local log builders would build the cabins in the summer and then they would close the cabin up get the riff finished and then in the winter they would build the furniture and I think a lot of the furniture that was done out here in the west was just pieces of pine just nailed together that was usable but not comfortable and it didn't look great. And I think he just saw a need for something that was really beautiful really comfortable.

And then. In 1930 we moved to Cody and he started Shoshone furniture company. And of course nobody had any money in the 30s to buy furniture. So he started the craft of making ranch type furniture. I think it was an opportunity for him. To not work for someone else and that was important to him. There were artist here was a logical place to begin a furniture business and it was a logical place to become incredibly creative. There were a number of wealthy ranchers from the east who spent their summers in Cody. And I think that Molesworth knew that there was a demand both for furniture in general and of course he quickly realized there was demand for his rustic furniture Molesworth wanted to build his own brand of rustic furniture in the arts and crafts tradition a style that nurtured the creation of sturdy simple and original designs.

I think for any aspiring furniture builder any aspiring artist that the Arts and Crafts movement became a model for what they ought to do at some point. Molesworth valued the arts and crafts style for its emphasis on craftsmanship and carefully studied the work of Master furniture builder Gustave stickly. One of the things that Molesworth was influenced by some of these early designers like Stickley at the Chicago was to depart was you'll notice this very thick heavy top sometimes Stickley covered these with leather with tacks Molesworth did the same thing. The clean lines and solid construction of these classic Stickley chairs clearly inspired Molesworth who added his own western flourishes. He used images and raw materials that evoke the spirit of the frontier and this appealed to customers including a wealthy publishing tycoon from Philadelphia. Moses Annenberg who had come west looking for a Western retreat.

And on this same trip or shortly thereafter Annenberg was in Cody Wyoming. And he saw a couple pieces a rustic furniture in the window Tom ML's Wirth furniture store and walked in and placed a huge order. Amber Grant I don't know the square footage but would have been on a similar you know not as big as Old Faithful but that kind of scale that kind of wanting to impress in a grand style and Molesworth stepped up and did everything and that lots the Annenberg Commission launched Molesworth career. It allowed him to expand into a much larger workshop but then just as business at Shoshone furniture company was heating up. Molesworth factory burned down. Well this thing was an inferno I mean they didn't save anything. He was heartbroken. But he said I'm going to stay right here and I'm going to build it back up in a very short period of time.

He got up and running again after that commission after. The Plains hotel in Cheyenne and other hotels around Wyoming hired Molesworth and his elite crew of artists at this point he had brought Greg ware out from Chicago and Ed was already pretty established artist and what he did for Molesworth was to take the furniture to the next level. Greg Ware produced iconic poster art for government projects and in Molesworth shop he applied his skills as a silhouette artist. Man oh man when they got together and looked in an empty room their eyeballs lit up they'd say here's what we can do here. Molesworth combined brightly colored leather with Chimayo weavings Navajo rugs and Nobby pine barrels like those used in the old faithful in those barrels generally grow about above 9000 feet high on very steep slopes and they're very hard to bring them out of the mounds I've even heard

people bringing them out of the mountains on pack horses from horseback to the workshop. It was the Molesworth way and those burros would allow Shoshone furniture to create. The club chair. Everybody should have like a. Nose With clubs here in red. You know it's just the classic piece of France and it was brilliant to use a barrel for the base of a cocktail. I find it not to be terribly rustic but terribly charming which is interesting because again you have pie. It's leather you're Burle. Chimayo woven fabric but all together it becomes a very cosmopolitan. And in the old days they had nothing but just solid hardwood to sit on. I mean you could relax around the fire for hours in the chair like this but this is the lazy

boy there. Comfortable club chairs and couches anchored a typical Molesworth room. Around these center pieces Molesworth created room scapes the same way John Houston made classic Westerns. There were wild animals six shooters and Ed Greig wears bow legged cowboy in a starring role. He dealt with it from the ceiling to the floor. There is a style about it. There is a craft about it that really speaks of a higher level. It was you know pretty amazing what he was able to do with the simple design embellish and yet make it in a factory setting and no one had ever done that with rustic furniture. I think he just had an enormous imagination and with the West there's a lot to play with. One thing he really liked was not having a budget. And that's probably when he did his best work when he was just turned loose financially. The clients handing Molesworth blank checks were often in Cody to hunt

Atlanta Coca-Cola magnate Bob Woodruff and Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey paid to saddle up with Max wild Cody's best known hunting guide and Molesworth good friend. Max had a ranch head of Southfork and my dad furnished and a lot of. Lot of Max's hundreds. Were customers of my dad. They were all John Wayne kind of guys back in those days and these Easterners want to hang around with them and they were hope of some of that would rub off. One thing that he did was network at a time. We're not a lot of that was done. He hung with. You know with a Western crowd. He was a tough guy and he played. He played cards and drank with the best of them. Tom cowboy hat boots fun you know glasses that he loved and he my dad had a great affection for each other they've

you know have a little shot of whiskey and then they tell stories and play gin rummy and. Throw their hats in the fireplace if they lost Molesworth was fun loving around the card table but rigid and meticulous in the workshop at Shoshone furniture company. There were no details scamped or corners cut. Molesworth had little patience for anything. Last year he was very very particular. I'm sure that he was not easy to please but he knew what he wanted and he got what he wanted. What he didn't want were interruptions at the shop. He was probably busy designing for tour or doing whatever he did but I think he he was kind of abrupt and I don't think he wanted to waste his time if he was sitting in Cody in his office and he got a call from somebody in Jackson and he said Oh I won't take that call and no tell him to. I won't talk to them and. And they kept coming back saying no we need to talk to Mr. Molesworth. And

he says he yells back into his office and he says I won't talk to anyone in Jackson Hole. Even if it's John D Rockefeller. And it turned out to be John D Rockefeller on the phone. Molesworth did the Rockefeller Commission and others in Jackson including the word hotel. Molesworth interior design an ED grade wears a mural became such a hit at the war that the owners of the rival million dollar cowboy bar hired their own artists to mimic Molesworth style. That wasn't the first time or the last. That success attracted copycats several of the people that he hired ended up being big competition and they left Molesworth and went into competition making his style of furniture. This led to a falling out with Paul and John Hindman who broke away and founded Wyoming furniture company. Then when a commission came up for the

noble hotel in Lander the Hindman underbid their old boss Tom was worth probably never forgave them for doing that. For some the best revenge is living well for Wyoming furniture makers. It's the undeniable ability to create a better product. You can see the progression of his talent. And refinement of his work into the 1940s and 50s Shoni furniture continued its successful run as the Molesworth look proved irresistible to customers searching for ways to accentuate their wild west fantasy. I think most people when they thought of visiting the West thought about hey let's go out West. And so he wanted to make his furniture fun. I think that his work is probably best expressed as. Molesworth played to that kid in you. I think we're the kids that grew up playing cowboys and Indians. There were people who were.

Spending their summer a weekend at their ranch. They were riding horses they were playing cowboy. And what a perfect way to end the evening. Sitting back in a chair with antlers around your ears. That sense of humor I think has to always apply to Western career. How can you build a horn cheer. And not smile at some point during its construction. For 30 years Molesworth translated the visual language of the West into furniture. He became a heavyweight of western interior design building furniture for President Eisenhower and collaborating with famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright on a house in Cody. He at one time said that he had furniture in every state in the union except two on a couple of yachts and some islands Molesworth figured out a way to bring that outside environment

inside with rustic furniture. In some ways he's really put Wyoming on the map thanks to Molesworth. Cody became the hub of Western furniture. It was fully community involved. Always involved you know making Cody a better place to live talking up code Molesworth you know he added to the mystique of it that mystique lived on even after Molesworth closed Shoni furniture in 1960 and retired to Arizona in Scottsdale Molesworth entertained friends from Cody including former governor Milward Simpson those tool coots to have a couple martinis out of a thermos. They thought they were drinking 7-Up. They'd eat their ham buns laugh and have fun. Molesworth love for Western art lived on in Arizona where he continued to practice the art of the deal. My mother would say she just get used to. It. Used to one painting and he would've sold it so she'd have

something else in the house. Molesworth kept horse trading well into his 80s. Then in 1977 he started confiding to friends about the trouble in his gut. Eventually Molesworth says health problems became unbearable. Tom balls were took his own wife because he had stomach cancer and that was not unusual at that time to take 45 minutes. You know it when the first guy in the West that put himself out of misery. You know I think there was an old saying that you know do for yourself what you do for your horse. News of Molesworth death rippled through Cody as friends raised a glass to old moly the legendary furniture maker was gone and beyond the social clubs and hunting lodges of Cody. The allure of Molesworth furniture was fading away and saw a lot of that stuff fell out of favor and I'm sure a lot of it was Hall of dull bore. Chopped up for firewood who knows because Shoni furniture company was so prolific.

Lots of Molesworth furniture survived into the 1980s. Meanwhile craftsman like Paul Heinemann carried on the tradition Molesworth started even as demand for Codie furniture dipped. The Molesworth look continued its ride off into the sunset until 1989 when the code style was spurred back to life thanks in part to an exhibition at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It wasn't until. This exhibition hit the floor that the whole story of Molesworth began to unfold. They had realize that you know this guy's an icon. The exhibit re-introduced Molesworth to the world and Jack's an antique dealer Terry Winchell went in search of authentic collections to supply a new breed of Molesworth customer. I believe Western culture is cyclical and people come back around and get excited about the West and at the time that. Terry uncovered his first Molesworth the West was hot and.

That was Dances with Wolves and stockbrokers were wearing their bolo ties to work and fashion models wearing boots on the runway and Terry uncovered Molesworth. And people were more excited to see something Western. The timing was right. Everybody was becoming interested in the West again. I think all of us 50 somethings were living out our fantasies and it just started as a whirlwind. High noon in the Molesworth revival. It was 1996 when Christie's Auction House in New York City brought a vast collection of Molesworth furniture up for sale. You know you're getting ready to enter into an incredible world of fantasy. That was the auction. Raised. Millions of dollars

in the sale of two or three that really set the world on fire. After the auction my phone started ringing and I bought some of the greatest collection. Within the next five years after that auction. This passion for Molesworth was taken all over the country and. He has discovered more and more Molesworth than anyone I would either get my pick up or the larger truck we have are on an airplane depending where the furniture is today. Winchell remains a one man Antiques Road Show. Oh I have something going right or should I just throw that. Winchell authored a book about Molesworth. And his fighting bare antiques serves buyers who pay thirty five thousand dollars for club chairs Molesworth sold for 300. And now today these little drink stands.

So for like twenty five hundred dollars at auction drinks stand couches Navajo rugs Thunderbird carvings and a bobcat head. It's all here at the Bear Lodge just outside Jackson this private residence built in the style of the old faithful in his home to the largest single collection of Molesworth furniture within the room scapes. If the 16000 square foot 60 million dollar mansion most worth status as a furniture phenomenon is firmly sealed I think Thomas Molesworth did become a phenomenon but I don't think he ever thought of himself in that way I don't think. Thomas malls were took this stuff too seriously. He probably was rolling over in his grave you know what he says he quit. Let's go to this guy who had his tongue in his trunk for much of the time that he was designing and constructing predictor. I find that people sometimes take Western frontier too seriously and.

I think it is at its heart it's quite innocent and quite fun and romantic and inspirational especially to a new generation of furniture makers who continue to shape the CODIS style. I just think he was because he was the first because he just he started something. Cody is a host of the Western Design conference where artists push the limits of rustic furniture. For John Gallus that means adding more organic twists to a foundation laid by Molesworth. But you do have to use your imagination because one person may look at this and say oh firework but I look at it as a potential threat to your potential art. I think in this day and age there. There are some craftsman who do elegant and wonderful pieces who work from the philosophy of say to the board will speak to me let me know what it is that it wants to be. You look at it and you just wonder you know if you could talk how. How much you it could stories you could tell it. Nature is just awesome you can't top it you can't compete with it

because you just have them having the proper eye. And I'm still developing at that. You have to look at something that sometimes we just put out a tape measure away and you know if it looks right it is right. Doing Western furniture right. It's a Wyoming tradition. Born in the imagination of Thomas Molesworth. Thomas Molesworth was the Rembrandt of Western for tradition. No one Sanch before Santos ever equal. The kind of stuff the bowls worth of stuff. Molesworth is revered because as a Wyoming person because he he did start from scratch. Number one I think that they respected hey you know maybe. You know so there was really somebody that had their eye on design out in the middle of nowhere. It's a design that's that will never lose its appeal. And it really is a design.

That speaks to Wyoming. It was something that was needed here and he felt. He was able to. Interpret Wyoming and. Make something that was truly from near. Buffalo Bill has often been said to bring the west of the world. I suspect at many levels Molesworth was able to bring. A similar way. To living rooms across the nation. So he would say. Well. Maybe it was all worthwhile. It's true. He would be pleased. You'd be pleased to see or it's being carried on. There will never be enough of us.