Bend furniture maker combines talents

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Kirk Casey, owner and founder of Terra-Steel, a custom furniture company based in Bend, brings a physician’s sensibilities to the world of furniture design.

After retiring from a career in sports medicine, Casey moved to Bend and brought his eye for detail and meticulous practice with him. A man with hobbies in glassblowing and marquetry (creating inlaid patterns in wood), Casey describes his life as a constant learning process. He took a course in interior design and taught himself to weld, he said, in order to further his furniture-making prowess.

“I’ve always used tools,” Casey said. “Now I get to use them professionally.”

Terra-Steel incorporates reclaimed or sustainable woods with common steel products like slices of catwalk or cable to produce clean, spare designs that Casey calls “High Desert contemporary.” A Terra-Steel coffee table featuring bubinga and lacewood won the award for best furniture design last year from the High Desert Design Council. Debbie Piper, council president and an interior designer in Bend, said Casey is one of a handful of builders working with recent trends.

“We’ve seen the trend towards contemporary (design) in Central Oregon,” she said Monday. “It’s a refreshing trend, to tell you the truth. For a long time we’ve been more rustic.”

Casey’s first hire and collaborator Justin Penfield grew up on a farm outside of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Working in ski and outdoor shops brought him three years ago to Bend, where he connected with Casey. Both men were working at Powder House, the ski and snowboard shop on SW Century Drive.

Penfield had moved back to Pennsylvania when Casey created Terra-Steel. Casey phoned his former co-worker with a request to join the company. It was good fit, Casey said. Both share a devotion to quality workmanship, he said.

Penfield had learned woodworking and tool skills in a practical way, working on his father’s farm and growing up in a rural area where outdoor recreation holds sway, he said. Choosing to return to Bend was easy, said Penfield, a self-described skier and climber.

“Honestly, I figured I could do the same thing here that I was doing there,” he said. “This is a bigger playground.”

Penfield, Casey and part-timer David Alleman do nearly all of the work at the Terra-Steel location on NE 18th Street. “We do everything in the shop except powder coating,” including cutting, grinding, welding and assembly, Casey said. He comes up with the first design, but Penfield may add to it in the process, both said. The firm has produced just under 100 pieces to date and always has a dozen or so in production or on hand, he said.

By way of example, Casey uncovers a completed coffee table and side table on the workshop floor. He voices the same pride in the workmanship that a physician takes in healing.

“Sports medicine shares a skill set with what we do now,” he said. “Trying to make sure our welds are as concealed as possible, that sort of thing.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com

Q: How do you see the business in the next three to five years?

A: Kirk Casey: We’d like to be known as a local business that uses as many local vendors and materials as possible, and we’d like to be in a space three times this size, with auditorium-style seating where clients or prospective clients can watch us work.

Q: How do you define High Desert contemporary?

A: Modern, with a component of the influences of this area. It’s not as blatantly modern as you’ll find in Seattle, Los Angeles or New York, but we pull components from all of them.