Day Trips

Hawkins Furniture Co. in Rosenberg builds furniture that your loved ones will be fighting over after you've passed on to a better place. Each table, chair, fireplace mantel, or cabinet is handcrafted for strength, beauty, and functionality.

"Everything we build is built to last at least 100 years," the company's owner says. His name is William Hawkins, but even his wife calls him Hawkins. He's a good-sized man with arms like logs, hands the size of tree stumps, and an easy smile on his face. Only his thinning hair and graying beard hint that he's 62 years old.

Hawkins Furniture has solidified a reputation for well-built furniture in a combination of rustic and modern styles. A Hawkins-built piece is a work of art as much as a piece of furniture. Some pieces, like benches or mantels, often follow the curvature of the original log, while other pieces are symmetrical. All of the home furnishings take advantage of the natural grain and color of the wood.

"I started using just-reclaimed wood," Hawkins says. "But then I discovered Texas Kiln Products." The Smithville lumberyard supplies him with sustainable harvested Texas woods. Besides mesquite and pecan, one of Hawkins' favorite woods is Texas black walnut.

A relatively rare wood, black walnut was brought to Texas from the eastern United States as a shade tree. In the Texas climate, the trees developed unique properties that produce a dark, hard finish. "Unfortunately, we often only get it when the tree is taken out because it is in the way of progress or has died," Hawkins says.

An auto mechanic for 20 years, Hawkins began his woodworking career more than 20 years ago when his brother asked him to paint some chairs at his furniture store in Houston. Being one of those guys who can do almost anything with his hands, Hawkins decided he liked working with wood more than fixing cars. His first project was a dining room table that he still uses. After several years of selling his creations wholesale, he opened his shop in a former tractor shop in downtown Rosenberg.

The showroom is full of his natural-wood furniture situated next to colorful chairs and cabinets by David Marsh, another Houston-area furniture-maker. A large picture window separates the sales room from the wood shop. "The original intent of the window was so customers could watch us work," Hawkins says. "But I usually take them into the shop to see and feel the wood up close." After all, it is all about the wood.

Hawkins Furniture Co. is at 1811 Avenue G, a block north of U.S. 90, in downtown Rosenberg. The showroom is open Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am to 3pm. For more information, call 281/341-0479. To see photographs of some of the unusual custom-ordered projects Hawkins has done, go to www.hawkinsfurniture.com.

1,013th in a series. Collect them all. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of Day Trips 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.