The history of henkel harris furniture (winchester, va)

A Slight Detour

Mumford Restoration loves a good North Carolina artisan, but we also love our upstairs neighbors in Virginia!

We’re going to take a small detour up the road and explore the origins of Henkel Harris, which still operates in its hometown of Winchester, Virginia. 

Like so many companies (including Mumford!), Henkel Harris succeeded due to steely resolve and a dedication to craft and quality. 

Multi-generational companies have to start somewhere! Mumford Restoration and Henkel Harris Furniture both began with motivated founders that combined a work ethic with a thirst for knowledge. 

Photo Above: A Henkel Harris label.

Pre-War Life

How did 3 people build one of  the most respected and high-end furniture brands on the market, when they began with no experience in or ties to furniture making? 

It came down to a lady with an eye for design and truly dogged determination. 

Mary McKenzie Henkel (1910-2001), a Virginia native, had been living in D.C. while her husband, Carroll Henkel,served in the Army during WWII. Mary had studied interior design at Parsons School of Design and was certified by the American Society of Interior Designers. 

Carroll Henkel (1910-1969) had been born and raised near Spokane Washington, but returned to his paternal family’s home of Martinsdale, West Virginia when he was eight years old. They lived with his beloved grandmother in their family home until he left for college. Sadly, Henkel’s parents would not see his future success.  His father died in 1919 and his mother passed away 5 years later. 

Henkel graduated with honors from West Virginia University and considered pursuing a graduate degree at MIT, but his paternal uncle convinced him to work at Carnegie Steel in Pittsburgh to gain practical experience as a metallurgist.

Mary and Carrol married in the late 1930s. 

Carroll Henkel continued to work for Carnegie Steel until he was called to serve in the Army in WWII.

During his service, he was tasked with researching steel and plastic applications for the war effort. 

Mary settled in Winchester, Virginia during her husband’s service.

When Carrol Henkel was discharged from the Army after the war, he joined Mary in Winchester.

Photo Above Right: Mary Henkel

Photo Above Left: Winchester, VA in 1940. [Photo by Arthur Rothstein]

Creating a Furniture Company

Mary and Carroll both enjoyed life in Winchester and Mary hoped to open an interior design business in the area. However, the area didn’t seem to have any career prospects for a metallurgist like her husband. 

Their friend John Harris of nearby Berryville, VA had also recently left the armed forces and was in a similar position. 

In 1946, Mary suggested producing furniture. Carroll and John seized upon the idea and the three decided to pool their savings of $40,000 ($708,000 in June 2025, adjusted for inflation). 

Unfortunately, none among the three knew how to make furniture. 

John Harris arranged to work with Copenhaver Furniture for $18/week ($319/week in 2025)  to learn the trade.

In the meantime Mary Henkel was able to locate a production space next to their home on Boscawan street. The building’s rent would be $40/month, but they would be responsible for all renovations to make it usable. As Mary Henkel recalls in a 1994 interview, “It had no floor, no heat, no lights, no windows, no doors….Our money went flying: concrete floor, heat, a front door.” 

The young entrepreneurs had bought second hand equipment as well, but their inexperience led them to buy the wrong type of equipment for the type of furniture they intended to make. They also found that their space (in which they’d invested so heavily) ultimately did not have enough room to assemble the furniture. It wouldn’t work.

Mary Henkel recalls in the same 1994 interview, “What were we going to do? We had to find a place. By that time, everything — all of the money — was all gone. See, we didn’t know that we bought the wrong things and so forth, so we went to the bank.”

After trying several lenders, the trio was able to get a small loan that was just enough to rent a $400/month ($7,000 in 2025) property on North Main Street. They then borrowed $10,000 ($172,000) from William Iselin and bought additional equipment (the correct kind, this time) as well as lumber. 

It was time to begin production.

Photo Above: A Henkel Harris chest featured in a 1986 issue of House Beautiful.

The Early Days of Henkel Harris Furniture

Henkel Harris’s designs were based on the 18th-century antiques they had in their own home. These reproductions would dominate Henkel Harris’s style, and the company tended not to make forays into modern furniture design. Mary stated, ““When we would do something different, it wouldn’t go over, so we’d go right back to what we had done in the beginning.”

Their first pieces were made of curly maple. In her 1994 interview, Mary Henkel recalled that the curly maple did not receive the enthusiastic attention they had hoped for. 

After trying walnut for a time, Mary insisted that Henkel Harris had to begin working with mahogany. Based on her design experience at Parsons, she felt that mahogany furniture would hold more appeal than any other wood. 

Their initial customers included Carrol Henke’s former Army friend as well as Maryland antique dealers who supplemented their business with reproductions. 

Henkel Harris’s big break came via a chicken truck. 

The Henkels and Harris gathered four of their nicest pieces for a trip to W. & J. Sloane’s department store on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C.

They loaded a walnut corner cabinet, a drop-leaf table, a night table, and a cancel table onto their friend Annie’s truck on which she’d been hauling chickens previously in the day. 

When Harris and the Henkels arrived outside of W. & J. Sloane, they had to brush the chicken feathers off of the furniture before bringing it into the store. 

In spite of the inauspicious beginning, W. & J. Sloane was impressed with the pieces and placed a large order from Henkel Harris. 

They slowly began to grow their D.C. client base and attract attention from customers looking for antique reproduction furniture. 

Drawing on her interior design background, Mary Henkel steered Henkel Harris towards the exclusive use of mahogany in their designs. Thompson Mahogany and I.T. William became Henkel Harris’s first two mahogany suppliers. 

Shortly after, John Harris grew tired of the demands of growing a small business and sold his $6,000 share of the company. Mary and Carrol Henkel were now marketing the company alone. 

The Henkels attended trade shows and visited high end department stores to help their company gain ground. 

Mary Henkel estimated that it took 12 years for Henkel Harris to become profitable.

Mary attributed Henkel Harris’s success to high quality and a limited variety. Mary understood Henkel Harris’ clients’ love for antique-inspired design, so the company maintained small collections  of high-end furniture for that historic-minded clientele, rather than investing in a variety of popular styles made from mid-quality material. She stated in 1994, “Make them good and sell them — make them good, but not a lot of them. You can make just as much money with a little line. Believe it or not, I really made money the time that I was here and didn’t have but a few pieces. But I went to the right people to sell them.”

Above Right:  A Henkel Harris bedroom set featured in a 1972 copy of How to Buy Furniture.

Above Left: A detail of a Henkel Harris cabinet.

Employee Education at Henkel Harris Furniture

Since Henkel Haris specialized in historic reproductions, Mary and Carroll Henkel encouraged their employees tolearn about historic furniture design. They provided books and even paid employees’ tuition to Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Virginia. 

Carroll and Mary continued to grow the company and find additional clientele with their fine mahogany and attention to historic design and detail.

Sadly, in January 1969, Carroll Henkel of a gioblastoma. 

Mary Henkel continued on alone.

Mary had taken care of accounting while her husband managed production and staff management. She now had to make decisions on every front. 

After initially struggling with the transition, she threw herself into learning about production. 

She told an interviewer, “ I went out there every day, two and three times. I went to all the meetings and I had meetings. I learned from the working people how to make the furniture. They are the ones who made the Henkel-Harris Company….I learned then, from them, what Henkel had taught them. Eventually I knew just as much as [the Henkel Harris plant manager] knew.”

Mary began organizing frequent bus tours of historic homes and properties so that her employees could see the type of furniture they were producing.

She paid employees for their Saturday afternoons, organized 6 buses, and had employees view furniture at Mt. Vernon, Winterthur, and in Williamsburg. 

When Mary Henkel was ready to add pieces to the Henkel Harris collection, she traveled to England and Scotland, where she purchased 6 antique pieces to be copied. Mary commented, ‘This was all after Henkel died so I had to do it. I’d go over on the plane. To tell you the truth, I was scared to death…but I went on.”

Throughout Mary Henkel’s time running Henkel Harris, she preferred mahogany and cherry, but would include walnut in collections if customers expressed an interest. 

Henkel stated in 1994, ‘Yes, we’re back in walnut.The only thing with walnut is a lot of it is wasted because a lot of it has holes and so forth. It’s not like it used to be, but we’ve had calls for it and people like it, so we just make it. The cherry comes from the States. Our cherry is very good. Our mahogany, every now and then, we get an order from Honduras, but not much anymore.”

Mary Henkel ran Henkel Harrus until her son, William M. “Bill” Henkel took over in 1982. Mary  became board chairman for many years after.

Above Right: Another Henkel Harris label.

Above Left: A Henkel Harris mahogany chest of drawers.

A New Era

Henkel Harris continued on producing high-end antique reproductions with few changes. 

However, the 2008 Economic Crisis placed financial strain on the company. Sales continued to fall until 2012, when Henkel Harris announced that it would close. By late Spring 2013, the final orders had been shipped out and it looked as if Henkel Harris was moving towards liquidation. 

However, A.G. Capital LLC, owned by the Gum family, purchased Henkel Harris and began restructuring its finances and operations.  David Gum acknowledged the quality of Henkel Harris pieces and noted that they are “something you pass on from generation to generation. The company repaired the furniture if you ever needed it. You still see it at estate auctions here.”

Henkel Harris is still in operation and continues to be made in the United States and Henkel Harris’s Winchester, Virginia plant.

Above: A sideboard from Henkel Harris's Jamestown Colony collection.

Restoring Your Henkel Harris Furniture

Mumford Restoration was relieved when Henkel Harris was purchased by an American company and continued to operate in its original location! We have lost so many excellent manufacturers over the years, so it means the world to keep such a respected manufacturer alive! 

Mumford‘s artisans always remark on the quality construction and finishes in Henkel Harris furniture and admire the craftsmanship that is so evident even at first glance. 

If you want to ensure that your Henkel Harris or other heirloom furniture will be treated with reverence and respect, look no further than Mumford Restoration. 

Like Henkel Harris, our artisans have extraordinary attention to detail and respect for both material and design. 

Whether you need your Henkel Harris furniture cleaned, repaired, restored, or refinished, you can count on Mumford to do work that would make Mary and Carroll Henkel proud!

Above: A Henkel Harris headboard in cherry.