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When John Randall opened his bespoke woodshop, Bien Hecho, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2006, he didn’t realize that his furniture and millwork—each piece handcrafted from specialty or reclaimed timber—would become design fixtures in some of the city’s stylish hospitality establishments. “Our bread and butter has always been custom woodwork and working with contractors, with standalone pieces purchased primarily by the hospitality industry,” says Randall, who counts architect Shigeru Ban, design firm Love Is Enough, and fashion designer John Varvatos as some of his studio’s clients.
But COVID put a different spin on things. As the global pandemic took a localized toll and demand from the hospitality and commercial sectors thinned, Randall saw a shift in the marketplace toward home goods. Requests for residential furnishings dovetailed with Randall’s aspiration for Bien Hecho to have an e-commerce strategy. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” he tells AD PRO. “I wanted to make it a little easier for people to purchase these things.” This spring, the once by-commission wood studio introduced a collection of furniture and accessories on its online shop.
Though shopping for furniture online may not offer the full essence of a piece, Bien Hecho’s designs tell stories far beyond the eye can see. The shop’s classic school desk, for instance, is made using reclaimed Ipe wood that was salvaged from the Coney Island boardwalk following superstorm Sandy. The credenza is made from Baltic birch, including a Sinker Cypress species that was hauled out of bayous in the South.
Another of Randall’s favorite woods, a solid teak, was sourced from the original deck of the USS North Carolina, a historic battleship built on-site at the Navy Yard in 1937 and later decommissioned in Texas. “That was really a fun one to work with because the wood made its way back to the Navy Yard and was worked on once more into a product that people could own,” Randall explains.
Yet even sourcing sustainability had its share of difficulties amid the pandemic. “It’s been a bit challenging because we were used to calling up suppliers and getting the wood the very next day,” says Randall. Like many industry manufacturers, Bien Hecho has had to incorporate the newfound delays into its production schedule.
The online shop’s debut consists of eight products—some new, others ingrained in Bien Hecho’s custom repertoire. Because of the way he works, Randall says new designs will be continuously added to the product roster—just don’t expect the studio to abide by any seasonal launch schedule.
“For me, it is more about the opportunity as it presents itself. As I get word about some interesting wood—or if a demolition company calls me and says this building is coming down—I’ll hop on my bike and take a look,” says Randall. “If it looks good to me, I’ll figure out how to get it, and what to do with it.”
