Where They Can Make Anything

Thomas Brown, Woodwright, a custom architectural millwork and woodworking company in Baltimore, strives to handle projects other companies generally can’t do. Serving mostly a tri-state area, the one-of-a-kind shop has produced some rather significant work ranging from 17th and 18th century historic jobs to modern creations. Now celebrating 32 years of success, owner Thomas Brown says he and his crew are always excited about going to work because of the uniqueness in what they do.

“We’re not a cabinet shop. We’re so much more fun. We get to touch history on a daily basis. We have work in the Lincoln Cottage in (Washington) D.C. We have work in the Naval Observatory. They’re all kinds of massively historic stuff that we’re trusted to do all the time. And it is difficult to make a profit doing stuff that sometimes you’ve never done before. Sometimes we’re not even sure how we’re going to make it. We have an idea, but pricing is more of an art than a science,” says Brown.

Brown has four full-time craftsmen – Jared Trusso, Mike Janczewski, David Kalwa, and Adam Brown, as well as a part-timer, Glen Owens. The company has operated out of a basement in a downtown mill since the mid-90s, full of traditional benches and antique machinery, and is moving to a nearby location in 2023.

Brown grew up around Towson, Md., and like most in the trade, always enjoyed tinkering with projects. One of his first positions was as an apprentice luthier for James Cox Luthier in Baltimore.

“When I was 20, I was working at the instrument shop a block from here. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I did that for a while,” he says. “Everybody’s supposed to go to college, so I went to college. I went to a few schools, started seven majors, and never finished any of them.”

He has fond memories of attending Villa Julie College, now known as Stevenson University, where he met his future wife, Dr. Kathleen Brown, PhD. “She was a young professor, and I was an older student. One thing led to another. We’ve been married for 32 years,” says Brown.

Brown rejoined James Cox as a millwork mechanic after the company had shifted its focus from Renaissance instruments to historic millwork. He also worked for Knipp and Co., a former millwork firm in Baltimore that was known for remodeling parts of the White House in the ’50s. Brown became a shop owner at age 36 after persistent prompting from a friend.

“I had no business training and I had just gotten a mortgage,” he says. “It scared the crap out of me, but my friend kept suggesting it and told me others with less experience have gone into business. So, in 1991, I quit my day job and rented a space in a shop with friends that did movie and TV scenery, and after a year or so got my first employee.”

The business grew quickly, to Brown’s surprise, with clients seeking expertise in architectural history and restoration, and building skills for cabinetry, doors, windows, handrails, stair components, and more. He soon had two employees, then moved into the basement shop.

About half of Brown’s clients are general contractors, a quarter are non-profits and institutions, and the remainder are homeowners.

“We do everything from a quarter of a million in historic millwork for a project, all the way down to a pair of shutters. We’ve got nothing too small and nothing too large,” says Brown, who can average around 50 active projects at a time.

A sampling includes curved casings for a 35’ x 70’ opening at Euro Disney, doors and millwork for the Korean Legation Museum, teak railings for the deck of the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, and renovations for the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. Lately, the shop has been working on an exact copy of a tabernacle for the Sisters of Mercy, commissioned by Maryland’s Historic St. Mary’s City Commission.

“This project is one component of a decades long project to reconstruct and interpret the first major Catholic Church in English America. A key element of that is the tabernacle that rested on the altar; a full and precise recreation of that tabernacle as it likely appeared in the 17th century,” says Brown.

Brown is responsible for estimates, drawings and producing cut lists. He has a very detailed design process that involves color-coding structural joints, for example.

“Those drawings can be submitted to architects, historic preservation boards, etc., for approval. We have an entity called CHAP here in Baltimore, the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. So, if you do something for a project for the historic areas in Baltimore, they require you to do it right. You can’t put in plastic windows. The aesthetics, they want it to look right.

“My drawings have never been rejected. Nobody I know can look at a piece of millwork, match a church door, tower, and draw it and bill out the parts. I can look at things and know how it’s put together.”

As mentioned, the shop has a large collection of antique machines, some of which are regularly used, dating from 1867-1929. Older machines were once intimidating to Brown, but he’s invested time and effort into studying and acquiring them, and now has more than he knows what to do with.

“When we set up in the new building, I’m going to get out all the machines and get them running. We have six band saws that go from the Civil War to the Vietnam War and will set them all up in a line for 100 years of American band saws.”

Some of the manufacturers in Brown’s collection include Oliver Machinery, J.A. Fay & Egan Co., Tannewitz, Rowley & Hermance Co., and Superior Machinery.

There are only a couple things the shop doesn’t do. “When I quite my day job, I decided I was going to try to get away with not doing stuff I don’t like to do,” says Brown. “I don’t like to install, and I don’t like to finish. So, we don’t finish and don’t install. But we can make anything.”

The shop stayed busy during the pandemic, signifying its importance to customers, according to Brown.

“There are two separate areas of craftwork. One is making things for sale, the other is making things for those that approach you for what they need, and that’s where we are,” he says. “We’ve never advertised at all. Not once in 32 years. We have a website (thomasbrownwoodwright.com) so people can check us out, but we’ve never advertised. People are coming to us with a need, and we want to keep it that way.”

Brown is 66 but has no plans to retire.

“A lot of times, in terms of projects like the tabernacle and everything else, there isn’t anyone else to make it, and that’s why we get it. And in other cases, stuff is actively falling apart where people in richer areas like Mount Vernon, a door needs redone. They come to me with the need already. I cannot imagine retiring for that reason, because the need for the stuff we make, what is Baltimore going to do? I absolutely can’t imagine doing anything else. Seeing stuff put back together that was falling apart and make it almost like new. I absolutely love that.”  

This article was originally published in the February 2023 issue.