Tales of tables: how the dining room has changed

A designer standing in his showhouse space answering myriad questions posed by attendees is often struck, and sometimes flummoxed, by what people are curious about. It’s interesting to learn what people instantly grasp and what people can’t possibly fathom. Not that I personally design my rooms around playing the game “stump the attendee.”

However, in any space I design, I believe one should devise or include something mysterious, something clever, something familiar, something beautiful, something controversial and something conceptually new (or forward-thinking).

During a visit to the Hampton Designer Showhouse dining room I designed, I was interested that an attendee was curious about the diameter of a down light and another was bowled over by the existence of cream leather. I was delighted to meet a couple who gave me an in-depth history of eyeglass moulds (I had displayed one) and they indeed manufactured eyeglasses. Another gentleman spent a good 20 minutes pouring over the mitered 19th century Dutch mirror frame I had hung on the wall

(he was a picture framer).

But one gentleman stopped me dead in my tracks by informing me that my dining table was too narrow. So we discussed it, as one would with any client, friend or student.

The dining table, along with the dining room, has undergone great transition in the last 15 years. In fact, the dining room—which is considered by most contractors as the most dispensable room in the home—has shrunk in size and, ofttimes, has been consumed entirely by the great room.

The dining table, good as it was in our parents’ generation, has evolved with the times as well. A quiet revolution in table design began approximately 20 years ago. This was about the time when the restaurant Asia de Cuba in Manhattan was conceived with highly elongated and very narrow dining tables, where diners were seated elbow to elbow next to complete strangers.

Whereas your mother’s Sheraton or Hepplewhite mahogany dining table might measure 46 to 53 inches wide, 7 feet long and 30 inches tall, the newer dining tables were soon to be offered in far different dimensions. These new tables measured 10 to 12 feet long, 30 to 36 inches wide and as low as 28 to 29 inches high.

The new dimensions offered a different kind of experience, one in which your lips could easily reach the diner across from you. You could lean in for chic intimacy and guests sitting two to three place settings away still were accessible to quiet conversation and subtle but witty repartee. And these slender banquet tables could slide easily up next to a wall, allowing for more ample furniture groupings in family rooms and great rooms.

Designers certainly have flexed their creative muscles offering up some fascinating choices in the mode of the slender banquet table.

For example, Lewis Mittman has produced the Seven Oaks dining table. This piece has a stoutly rectangular base supporting an ethereal glass top into which is imbedded attenuated birch branches. Made from renewable resources and green materials, this elegant table can be purchased eco guilt-free.

Berman Rossette has produced two handsome tables. The Equis features an X-shaped base that supports a planked walnut table, which is stained charcoal with stylish bronzed metal joiners. The Sun Valley table takes a unique glance at the 1960s Parsons table, with legs and ends executed in a platinum metal finish with leaves of slab walnut.

Sylvester and Company displays the dynamic Japanese slab table (which I showcased in the Hampton Designer Showhouse dining room) made from South American koomba wood with a “living edge.” Appearing to be sliced from the center of a richly figured exotic wood, this narrow table squarely rests on two additional slabs of koomba. Though simple in concept and construction, the delicious thickness of the luxurious wood and the depth of its finish leaves a lasting impression.

And for the bleached Belgian aficionado, Sylvester’s pedestal table salutes the beach in its weathered driftwood finish.

B and B Italia’s Archie table sets the pedestal concept cleverly on its ear with radial alcove volumes supporting a thin top. Master and mistress sit within the alcoves while guests float between the two. Finished in a durable white lacquer, the Archie would be my choice for the white box cubular manses that dot our shoreline.

Elongated trestle tables of great popularity with the Dutch gambrel set are ubiquitous, but still farmhouse fabulous. On the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons garden tour, I spied a rustic beauty (custom made, I presume) at the cooking studio of Ina Garten—queen of the elongated table! I was immediately smitten by the rustic, bleached, oak pedestal supporting a 2½-inch soapstone top.

David Iatesta’s Seven Trestle table refines the style, especially with his pale, robin’s egg blue colorations.

For the most lux trestle table in the northeast though, no one can beat Howard Kaplan’s Tiger Maple version, which is created out of a single tree with perfect proportioned detailing. I salivate when I behold this table.

Though all in favor of the Knights of the Round Table, I wonder how they screamed across the lengthy abyss to speak to each other. Maybe this is why Lancelot and Arthur had such a difficult time communicating.

As for my own personal experience with these behemoths, having spent a loud, albeit wonderful, dinner at the new “living room” at the Old Maidstone Arms, I still found we couldn’t communicate across our round table. I could speak only with the companion to my left or right.

This made me long for the narrow banquet table where loud conviviality can still be shared amongst more than two at a time. So in this writing, I have no rounds to recommend. And round seems dowdy at the moment.

Though the design community has embraced the narrow banquet table, the oval is now reappearing as well.

J. Robert Scott has introduced Curves, a thick oval glass tabletop supported by undulating panels of clear acrylic banded in polished stainless steel—sensual, minimalist and transparent. Selecting chairs that won’t clutter up this table’s appeal might be a challenge, though.

Paul Ferrante produces a polished steel metal oval table whose lightness of being is quite bearable. Appearing like a folding tray table, its advantage is movability and casual garden-comes-indoor appeal. Surrounded by indestructible French café chairs, your cappuccino and brioche will never look more at home.

English Country has the prettiest Swedish oval pedestal table, which is sandblasted, wire-brushed and bleached within an inch of its life. The result is that charming “I’ve been scrubbed with lye soap all my life” look and fits winningly into your archipelago summer cottage.

Finally, for the traditionalists, a remarkably luxurious Georgian pedestal table has been designed by Michael Smith (of Obama White House fame). Its flame mahogany veneers breathe of the 18th century and its warm waxed finish begs for lead crystal, Bernardaud porcelain and sterling silver.

Since the dining table is one of the largest home purchases, be sure to pull up a chair and sit at it before you plunk down your money. Watch out for too deep of an apron and flimsy tops.

Also make sure your kneecaps remain intact when you scooch yourself in. Observe the height—above 30 inches is too tall for most—you’ll be surprised how perfect a well-scaled table will feel and how it will contribute to the overall success of the dining experience.

Marshall Watson is a nationally recognized interior and furniture designer who lives and works in the Hamptons and New York City. Reach him at 105 West 72nd Street, Suite 9B, New York, NY 10023.