A flair for furniture

In Duke Cornell's yard, you have a choice of chairs that would exhaust Goldilocks.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF, Times Correspondent
Published August 13, 2007

George Cornell stands for a portrait with some of the tools he uses to hand crafted chairs and tables at his Zephyrhills home. Cornell has been hand crafting and selling his wooden furniture from his home for 28 years, he began making it as a way to keep busy after a heart attack.
	[Zach Boyden-Holmes | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Zach Boyden-Holmes | Times] George Cornell sits for a portrait on one of his hand crafted chairs in front of his Zephyrhills home.

ZEPHYRHILLS - George "Duke" Cornell has been selling his handmade furniture from his front yard across from Zephyr Park for as long as anyone around here can remember.

He makes gliders, porch swings, Adirondack chairs, picnic tables and, best of all, sweet little children's chairs that look like they belong in a chalet somewhere up in the north woods.

"He's made them for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren," said Duke's daughter, Donna Freeman, 59, a retired school secretary who has lived in Zephyrhills since 1975.

At 79, Duke - so nicknamed in childhood after John Wayne's nickname - is still going at it with the gusto of a much younger man.

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Wearing his blue World War II veteran's ball cap he served in the Navy in the Pacific theater and a smile that melts away a visitor's worries, he's a low-key salesman for furniture that's in such high demand it's been shipped as far away as Hawaii, Italy and England.

"We have people come from St. Petersburg and Clearwater and strap it onto the roofs of their cars," he said. "We also get a lot of people from Wesley Chapel who've just finished landscaping their yards or built a new deck and want new furniture."

A lot of times, Duke builds his furniture in the garage workshop of his 1940s cottage with its stone chimney and old-fashioned shutters. Some days, though, he pulls his tools out on the driveway and builds there "because it's a lot cooler," he said.

Picnic tables, chairs and the children's furniture he makes from spruce (and then burns with a torch for a more rustic look) are all on display in the front yard.

His wife, Millie, 78, hand sews all the cushions for the children's furniture from custom orders.

She offers a selection of her own fabrics "from Curious George to Spider-Man to Harley-Davidson," Freeman said, "The Harley-Davidson is the most popular."

But Millie will also sew the little cushions from fabric customers provide.

"A lot of customers come down to Florida just for the winter and then take the furniture back up North to their grandkids," Duke said. "Lots of people come by on weekends and during festivals."

As a young man, Duke lived in upstate New York and worked as an electrician on high power lines. He raised his family there and worked hard. He was 45 when he had his first heart attack and had to retire.

"That's when he started making furniture," Freeman recalled. "Dad has always been a handyman - he always had older houses that had to be remodeled. After he had a heart attack so young and had to retire, his hobby turned into his salvation."

Duke and Millie started coming to Zephyrhills in 1972 to visit friends and eventually bought a house and decided to stay in the historic Florida town.

He has been making the furniture for years, but it seems to be selling more briskly than ever. Though he's officially a Floridian now, he's not swayed much by the tropical influence. His furniture still reflects the look of the lodges and cabins of upstate New York.

And the folks who buy it seem to really like it.

"It's all by word-of-mouth; I don't advertise," he said. "I've been getting a lot of customers from Wesley Chapel - a lot of times they've just finished landscaping or have built a deck and are ready to furnish it."

Gliders sell the best, Duke said, closely followed by the classic Adirondack chairs.

Prices are cheap, too - a porch swing sells for $80 - and the whole experience of buying from Duke in his driveway is definitely part of the package.

Plus, Duke's handmade furnishings seem to last and last.

Said Freeman: "My son will be 40 and he still has the furniture Dad made for him when he was a little boy."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified August 12, 2007, 21:10:01]