Two important events happened during this period. First, I signed multi-book contracts with both Taunton Press and Sterling Publishing. Finding that I could not write and make chairs at the same time, I gave up my chairmaking business. Second, I began an association with the Woodworking Show out of Los Angeles. This company ran shows in large cities all over the country and I became one of their seminar teachers. Now I visited several cities every month and spoke to even larger groups of woodworkers. The awareness of Windsor chairs among American woodworkers grew like a mushroom.

As I traveled more and more I ran into former students with increasing frequency. What I learned depressed me. I would always ask, "How many more chairs have you made?" Almost always they responded sheepishly, "None." When I asked why, most explained that they did not have the time to get a log and split it, make bending forms, set up a steam box, etc. Some said they had started a chair, but stopped because they could not remember the complicated procedures I had shown them.

How disappointing! If the people who took classes from me were not making more chairs at home all my hopes of a Windsor chairmaking revival were wasted. I had imagined that they were going home and making more chairs for their family members and for their friends. Instead, a typical student's only chair amounted to nothing more than a trophy of a week spent with me. Chairmaking was not a skill they could carry on.

Learning that the problem was lack of access to supplies and to the follow-up support they needed, I began to envision a permanent center of Windsor chairmaking. That center would create the critical mass needed to sustain a true revival. I envisioned that it would also eliminate other problems. Since BYU, I had taught in temporary, make-do facilities. Many were very crude, but even the best equipped woodworking shops were not designed for chairmaking. For example, there was never a permanent sharpening station. Thus, sharpening students' tools was always difficult. One good thing did come out of this. To address this recurring problem I developed the sandpaper sharpening system that has since become so popular.

Furthermore, after the class was finished, everyone (including me) went home. A student who had a question or needed more help could not get it by calling the place where I had taught. I knew a true Windsor revival would require a permanent center with a permanent faculty that was always available to help students when they ran into problems making chairs at home.

In 1987 my teaching association with Ernie drew to a close. It was a time of transition for both of us. He was developing the wood-bed Conover Lathe. Besides speaking and writing books, I was also writing magazine articles. I continued to teach, but as Ernie's focus shifted, my supply of tools dried up.

In 1992, my son Michael was born. A week after his birth I flew off to the Woodcraft Supply store in Detroit to teach a chairmaking class. Two days after returning I was off to Nova Scotia. I called Sue and told her I could not do this any longer. I wanted desperately to be home with her and our baby. My next class was at Highland Hardware in Atlanta. To avoid being apart again we drove there. The trip took three days down and three back. It was wonderful to have Sue and the baby with me. However, on the return trip Sue explained that we could not keep this up, as our travel costs ate up most of my teaching fee. I asked for suggestions and she replied that we would have to start teaching at home.

After a great deal of waffling and self doubts, I agreed. This decision coincided with yet another transition in my life. Rodale had just published my seventh book, and I did not plan on writing any more. I moved out of my basement shop and rented a three stall garage on Hill St. in Portsmouth, NH. My plans were to teach part-time and to reestablish the chairmaking business I had left in the early '80s, to become a full-time teacher and writer. We planned to hold one class a month with five people, to allow me time to make chairs in between.

The Windsor Institute began in February, 1994 in a
three Stall garage on Hill Street in Portsmouth, NH.

We ran our first class in February 1994. After a very slow start (no one attended my second class, the third class had three people, and the fourth only two) classes began to fill consistently. However, in spite of my permanent location, students still did not return home and make more chairs. The resources they needed were still lacking. It became apparent to me that the students are poorly served when one tries to teach classes and run a chairmaking shop at the same time. The focus is simply not on them and their success. It is not possible to be a good teacher and a working chairmaker at the same time.

Knowing my long-time dream of a Windsor revival, Sue began to envision something else - a full-time school. She sold me on the idea. Taking this step would force us to relocate, as Portsmouth is too built up to allow us to expand. In 1995 we began our search. We knew in advance what we required in a new location. While we wanted enough land for our new facility and a new house nearby, we could not be out in the middle of nowhere. We needed to be accessible, so that people could get here easily. Since many people come great distances we needed to be near airports. We had to have plenty of motels and restaurants in the immediate area for our students.

We found an ideal parcel of 60 wooded acres in nearby Hampton, NH. In the early 1970s Route I-95 had cut Hampton in two. The east side of the highway had developed and as a result had all the infrastructure we needed. However, the west side remained woods and farms, with only a mile separating the urban and rural areas. We bought the parcel from the same family to whom it had been granted by the King of England in 1638. Thus, we are only the second owners.

The new location could not be any better for us and our students. We are ¼ mile from the intersection of Routes 95 and 101, the major north-south and east-west highways. People can get here easily and directly from all four compass points. Boston's Logan Airport is 45 minutes south down 95. Manchester's Grenier Field is 45 miles west on 101.

Because this was a real school with a real curriculum and educational mission, we named it The Windsor Institute. We broke ground in the fall of 1995. We moved into our new, state-of-the-art facility in early January 1996. Our first class began on January 27.

Mike, Sue, and young Michael Dunbar on the front porch of The Institute's new home in January, 1996.

The Institute continues to grow and improve.

A lot of thought went into planning our new building. Every other place I had taught was make-do, temporary, and inadequate. This building was designed for one specific purpose - Windsor chair classes. Our classroom has massive benches that do not move or wiggle. Each work station is equipped with a large, heavy Record #53 vise. It has a permanent sharpening station. Walls are covered with well-maintained tools for students who do not bring all that are needed. A chair assembly stool is available for each work station.

The classroom is clean and neat. Rather than concrete, it has 1 ¾ inch thick hemlock floors supported by 2 X 4 sleepers. We can stand all day without aching legs. It has wonderful natural light, 10 foot ceilings, air conditioning and central heat, a full kitchen and a modern restroom. It has plenty of parking. The machines we use for stock preparation are now in a separate building. Steam bending is done under cover. Our log yard has a steady supply of red oak veneer logs.

Our conference and showrooms, and our offices are on the second floor. These rooms are carpeted, finished, and furnished as a professional office. The second floor allowed me, for the first time to have everything in one place. We built book cases to house and display my extensive collection of books on Windsors and woodworking. Our library on these subjects has to be one of the most complete in the world. On view is my collection of antique chairmaking tools and other related items. Our memorabilia makes the space the Windsor Revival's own museum.

Furthermore, our second floor allowed us to make our collection of genuine 200 year old Windsors available for study. While taking a class students can see the real thing. For a chairmaker, exposure to original chairs is important. Without a trained eye, a modern chairmaker falls under the design influence of factory chairs and ugly monstrosities are the result.

Our building's exteriors and architecture are beautiful and carefully matched. They are decorated seasonally and the grounds are carefully manicured weekly. That is one of the reasons Martha Stewart Living, Country Living, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and a host of other media have featured The Institute.

As we had planned, a permanent chairmaking school did create the critical mass for a Windsor chairmaking revival. There was now enough momentum to re-establish it as a living craft. I began to seek out and work with tool makers who would produce copies of my old tools and provide a steady supply for our students. I lent these tool makers my originals. I tested their prototypes and suggested improvements. I even helped them develop tools that had not existed before. Today, about a dozen such craftspeople are associated with The Institute. Some have grown enough that mail order tool catalogs now carry the tools that were originally developed here. These tool suppliers make up The Institute's extended family. We see them often and are in regular touch with them. Our efforts to always produce better tools is ongoing.

To generate that critical mass mentioned above, The Institute also needed a publication that would keep chairmakers in touch with the changes and innovations taking place in their craft. Such a publication would also allow them to communicate and share with each other. For that purpose we began to publish The Windsor Chronicles, a quarterly magazine for Windsor chairmakers. The first issue was printed in Spring 1995 and The Chronicles has been in continuous publication since.

As demand for space in our classes grew, we offered them with increasing frequency. Teaching so often allowed me and our teaching staff to identify those processes that were the most difficult for our students. We began to search for better ways to explain and perform these problem operations. That focus on continuous improvement is part of The Institute's culture. While we are always aware that Windsor chairmaking's roots are in the past, we are focused on keeping chairmaking vital and growing.

From time to time, a student would propose a better, or an easier way of doing something. To recognize those folks we created the Chairmakers Hall of Fame. Certificates honoring the Hall's members hang in the stairway that leads to The Institute's second floor. We call these folks the Immortals and we keep their memory alive. Before we demonstrate one of their techniques we explain that "In the old days this was a nightmare, but not anymore thanks to a humanitarian, a philanthropist, and a chairmaker concerned with the well-being of his/her fellow chairmakers..."

Because The Institute is a permanent school rather than an ad hoc or temporary set up we offer an entire curriculum, rather than just a Windsor chair class. For the same reason sack back was the chair I selected to teach at BYU it is the first class in our curriculum. Everyone studying here has to begin with our sack back class. While this is a challenging chair, making it allows us to teach all the things that are common to all Windsor chairs. This way, students who wish to continue their studies by taking our advanced classes, all share that common body of knowledge given in sack back. That is why we are so insistent than anyone taking any of our advanced classes must have taken sack back here. We have no way of knowing the quality of the experience someone may have had elsewhere. It is not fair to the other people in an advanced class to hold them back while we explain the basics to someone who has had a poor or incomplete chairmaking experience somewhere else.

At this moment The Institute offers nine different advanced classes. You can see these chairs in the gallery on this site. Advanced classes allow us to expand on sack back by introducing our students to a complete range of other chairmaking techniques. While sack back is run many times during the year, each advanced class is run only once or twice.

The Institute is always expanding its curriculum and we introduce a new chair class roughly every year. This allows us to offer our students an ever expanding body of knowledge. New chair classes are also part of The Institute's research function. In developing them we too, continually probe more deeply into the realm of chair design, and continually improve our chairmaking and teaching methods.

For example, our most recent class is our Family Bench. Until now the Windsor Revival has been focused on only the 18th century. This means that for more than 2 decades I have been teaching just half the story of these chairs. Windsors were made beyond 1800, up until about 1850. However, 19th century chairs were designed around a decorated finish rather than a solid color. Combining our efforts with a decorative artist who will teach decorative painting to our students, the Windsor Revival will now include the entire history of Windsors. It is my prediction that the revived craft of Windsor chairmaking is going to change dramatically as more and more chairmakers learn how to make 19th century Windsors. In the next several years customers will recognize and demand 19th century chairs. This change is going to come about because of the major step The Windsor Institute has taken with the Family Bench, and because of our continuing commitment to increasing skill and knowledge among today's chairmakers.

The Windsor Institute's new Family Bench.

The Institute also has The Royal Orders, an honor society for those who have pursued chairmaking to the point of excellence. When a student has completed sack back, continuous arm, New York City bow back side chair, Nantucket fan back, and one elective (in any order) he or she is inducted as a Knight of Windsor. While recognizing a serious and significant achievement, this ceremony is tongue-in-cheek and full of humor. I dress up as a king and the knight wears plastic party armor.

A Knighting is a fun filled ceremony that recognizes a significant achievement.

After their ceremony the newly made Knights share their cake with the rest of the class.

A student who takes all the classes offered at The Institute becomes an Earl of Windsor in another fun-filled ceremony. An Earl becomes a Duke of Windsor when he or she returns, dons the staff uniform shirt, and helps us teach a sack back class.

Because our goal is for people to make more chairs at home, our staff offers continuing support. We are regularly in touch with former students who need a little help or a refresher while working at home. Many of the phone calls and emails to The Institute are from people taking advantage of our technical support and our continuing interest in their progress.

About 10% of the people who study with us each year go pro and either become full-time chairmakers or add Windsor chairs to their line of furniture. We offer additional support for these people. We regularly council them about marketing, and every other aspect of running a chairmaking business. Although we do not make chairs for sale, people regularly call here wanting to buy chairs. We help our students who have gone pro by referring a buyer to the student nearest to them.

We have a special benefit for members of the Royal Orders who have gone pro. We give them a link from our web site. That way potential customers can contact them directly.

To further promote our students we developed the Tatman. This is the chairmaking equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. The Tatman is a special brand that can only be used by chairmakers who have trained at The Institute. If you are buying chairs, look for it on the bottom of the seats. The Tatman is our way of vouching for the quality of the training the maker received. If you do not see the Tatman we strongly urge you to buy chairs from someone who does use it.

Tatman

In the past, obtaining supplies, templates, and tools had been an obstacle to students making more chairs at home, so The Institute also has developed an online catalog. Everything our students need is only a phone call or email away. Our catalog can be found HERE. Products range from raw chairmaking stock, to an audio cassette of Windsor chairmaking songs. Yes, The Windsor Institute has an official school hymn. Though it does not really have athletic teams, it has an official fight song for our athletic contests with our imaginary rivals, the vile and treacherous Shaker chairmakers from Shakermaker U. The Knights of Windsor have their own drinking song.

Some 550 people a year study at The Windsor Institute. About 85% of them will return for one or more advanced classes. We run 31 classes with 17 students. We have four instructors. We find this is the ideal class size as it generates deeper and more probing discussions and exploration of chairmaking. The result is a much more complete understanding of Windsor chairs than would occur in a smaller group. This class size also creates a wonderful camaraderie that simply does not occur in smaller classes and fellowship is an important part of the class experience. In fact, it is very common for students to return for an advanced class together with a friend from sack back.

A recent class.

Our students come from all over the United States, Canada, and the world. The national flags of our foreign students line the walls. We are proud that The Institute has established North American Windsor chairmaking on five of the six habitable continents. (Antarctica may take a while longer.) Obviously, The Institute's reputation and the quality of the experience offered here is such that for our students, distance is not a deterrent.

This brief history of the Windsor Revival explains how The Windsor Institute provided the critical mass needed to make it happen. This history also underscores our statement that if it's happening in the world of Windsors, it is emanating from The Windsor Institute. This is where it all began and is where it all continues.

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