03 Jul Shedding Light

Joan Benson and Stephen Kent created their first piece of shed antler decor for a client who’d hired them to renovate her three-story, 5,000-square-foot condo in Snowmass, Colorado. Kent had been making furniture and doing design/build in the Aspen area, and Benson was working in interior design. Their assignment was to give the condo a log cabin feel. Though the exterior retained its generic condo look, the inside was transformed into an antique Victorian/log cabin-style space. At the end of the project, Benson and Kent asked if their client would like anything else. She said she wanted an antler chandelier, specifically a frosted-glass sphere embraced by deer antlers.

A Huntsman chandelier with carved walnut deer heads and silk roping illuminates the great hall walnut table that extends to 11 feet, surrounded by standard dining chairs of antler. A Crystal Farm aluminum consul table stands behind the hide-on leather sofa and a rich leather ranch wingback chair sits by the fireplace.

It was a new concept for the couple. At the time, no one was making high-quality antler decor for the American design market. “We thought it was ugly,” Kent recalls of the finished piece, “but she liked it. She bought it for $150.”

Cocktail Coaster Stand and Marble Coasters | Nickel-Plated Aluminum | 8 x 5 x 5 inches

European Billiard Light | Fallow Deer Antler | 24 x 30 x 54 inches

Antler Bench in Navajo Chief’s Blanket | Antler and Wood | 18 x 15 x 60 inches

Following Benson and Kent’s initial foray into antler decorative art, a friend suggested they look at 19th-century European antler furniture. They traveled around Europe, particularly inspired by collections in Munich and Wiesbaden, Germany. Back home, they produced their own designs and took part in the 1986 Pan Pacific Lighting Exposition, hosted by the Illuminating Engineering Society in San Francisco.

Captains Chair | Antler, Wood, and Leather | 30 x 24 x 28

Imperial Kudu Core Ivory Chandelier | Inner Core of Kudu Horn Extracted and Polished to Ivory Finish, LED Optic Lighting at Tips, Geodesik Sphere Display | 60 x 60 x 60 inches

It was their first time introducing Crystal Farm to the design world; interest was immediate. “It was a new alternative to crystal and wrought iron chandeliers,” Kent says. Among the 200 exposition participants whose focus was on high tech and contemporary lighting, their antler fixtures and furnishings stood out. So did their display, which featured burgundy velvet drapes, three chandeliers, antler coffee tables, house plants, and cookies. “Designers and people from all the other companies came and sat in our booth,” Kent recalls.

Mongolian Longhair Sheep Covered Bench | 18 x 20 x 60 inches

French Charolais Steerhorn Chaise | Texas Longhorn, French Charolais Hair-on Cowhide, and Silk | 45 x 45 x 68 inches

Alongside on-the-spot orders, Crystal Farm was invited to exhibit in several San Francisco Design Center showrooms. For the next three years, Kent and Benson expanded into design centers in every major city. They gained publicity through word of mouth, an attractive catalogue, magazine articles featuring design, and architectural projects containing their work. Soon, they were selling internationally.

The sprawling lawn of Crystal Farms home, guest house, and studio Kent built as a replica of the dairy barn that was original to the property.

The quick rise was not without a learning curve. Their first large chandelier for a private home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was destined for a massive great room with a 30-foot ceiling. The glitch? There were no doors or windows big enough to get the 4-by-6-foot fallow deer antler chandelier into the room. Crystal Farm’s three-woman crew took it apart, shipped it, and, by phone, walked the client through reassembling it. After that, they confirmed access in advance.

Relaxing in the Crystal Farm’s courtyard in Redstone, CO. Their rustic and highly durable aluminum antler furniture makes for cozy entertaining.

Today, Crystal Farm has antler decor in homes, luxury hotels, and high-end commercial properties worldwide. The company’s largest custom chandelier to date measures 10 feet high and 12 feet wide and contains dozens of antlers. Since their first antler chandelier, they have expanded their deer and elk furniture and home accessories to include chairs, sofas, tables, beds, wall sconces, mirror frames, and lamps.

The remodeled and restored Crystal Farm Ice House was originally built in 1896 for ice storage and is now the guest house.

Currently, just for fun, Kent is working on a chandelier whose carved wooden center is a truncated dodecahedron, similar to a geodesic sphere. Polished inner ivory of African kudu horns gracefully curves out in all directions. The striking design, which he jokingly refers to as a “Death Star disco ball,” will be illuminated with LED lights in the sphere and fiber optic lighting at the tips of each horn.

The remodeled and restored Crystal Farm Ice House was originally built in 1896 for ice storage and is now the guest house.

For years, clients asked whether antler furniture could be used outdoors. For years, the couple said no: Antlers fade in the sun. “We kept thinking about it and did a lot of research,” Benson says. The couple’s solution was cast-aluminum outdoor furniture. Just like sculpture, molds are made from original antler pieces and from rustic oak or bent willow furniture. Instead of bronze, the pieces are cast in aluminum and painted to look like the organic materials. Each piece is surprisingly heavy, which addresses a common request. “People wanted something that wouldn’t blow off the deck into the lake,” Benson says.

The company, Lazy CF Ranch, was established as the outdoor line, named after the couple’s property south of Redstone, where Kent built a small lodge and several cabins and hosted family and friends for years. The journey to find a foundry capable of casting aluminum to the required quality was a years-long process, but they finally found a small family-operated foundry that they visit to quality check each casting run.

Crystal Farm house porch with aluminum furniture and antler chandelier, perfect for enjoying an evening meal with friends.

The long history of the couple’s business is inseparable from the Colorado home they have shared for almost 50 years. Crystal Farm was once a dairy farm that served the small community of Redstone, founded in the 1890s by industrialist John C. Osgood as a model company town for his coal mining operations. The farm contained a barn, carriage house, and other outbuildings, a main house, and an icehouse, all built around 1896.

Situated in the narrow, cliff-walled Crystal River Valley southwest of Aspen, the ranch was bare of trees, and both the main house and icehouse needed major restoration. Benson, originally from a small town in Ontario, Canada, had purchased the fixer-upper. A few years later, in need of someone with carpentry skills to hang a door, she was introduced to Stephen Kent. He took on the task. As he helped renovate the icehouse and main house, the two fell in love.

Great room at the Lazy CF Ranch Lodge, a 6-ft tall Jerome chandelier hangs over the Great Hall table, surrounded by antler dining chairs, carved wooden deer and elk heads, hair-on hide sofas, walnut coffee table with ram’s horn legs.

Over the years, Crystal Farm’s stark fields were transformed into expansive, manicured lawns and pastures, lined with tall pines and dotted with other mature trees and landscaping. “We planted 500 trees,” Kent says proudly. In 1990, the carriage house containing Crystal Farm’s original woodworking shop and antler studio burned down. Kent built its replacement, a 5,000-square-foot studio/shop closely modeled after photos of a massive dairy barn that had been on the property. The woodworking shop is downstairs, while the spacious antler studio takes up the second floor.

Country living is reflected in Kent’s to-do list, handwritten in a small notebook bound in aging leather and always several pages long: Fence. Silo. Dog pond. “Everybody works off this list,” he says of himself, Benson, and Crystal Farm’s small crew. But the antler decor and outdoor furniture business has also meant world travel for the couple and interacting with all kinds of people, from royalty to regular folks. As Kent surveys his land and reflects on all he and Benson have accomplished, he says, “We’ve had a lot of fun.”