Saer Huston - Huston and Company
- Brick + Tides
- 13 hours ago
- 6 min read
The map hangs downstairs at Huston & Company.
Hundreds of red pins stretch across Maine, New England, and well beyond, marking homes, libraries, schools, and universities where furniture built in Arundel eventually found a permanent address. The pins trace decades of work, from private dining rooms to some of the most respected academic institutions in the world. At first glance, the display feels like a complete record of the company's history.
Then Saer Huston (pronounced 'S-AIR' ) points out that it hasn't been updated in nearly ten years. The realization changes the map entirely. What first appears to be a record of where the furniture has gone becomes a reminder of how much has happened since. New projects have been delivered. New clients have been added. More pins could be placed in more states, schools, libraries, and homes. The map still tells an impressive story. It just doesn't tell all of it.
Founded in 1988 by master furniture maker Bill Huston, the company now operates from a 6,000-square-foot workshop tucked along a quiet stretch of road in Arundel, Maine. Visitors sometimes wonder if they have taken a wrong turn before arriving. Inside, however, furniture is headed in every direction.
A massive 18' reading table is being prepared for a college library in Kansas. Study tables are bound for New York. Custom pieces are destined for homes throughout New England.
Over the years, furniture built here has found its way into Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, the University of New England, and countless homes, libraries, and schools throughout the Northeast and across the nation.
The destinations are impressive, but Saer doesn't talk about them that way. Throughout the morning tour of the shop, he repeatedly steers the conversation away from prestige and back toward the work itself. When discussing a large reading table under construction, he quickly points to the craftsmen who helped make it possible. Around him are men who have devoted years—and in some cases decades—to learning the trade, refining techniques, and building furniture that may outlast the people who made it.
The work demands patience, precision, and a willingness to spend hours solving problems most people will never notice. Yet piece after piece moves through the shop because of people who continue to show up, day after day, for the simple satisfaction of making something well. The furniture may carry the Huston name, but the finished product reflects the skill, experience, and dedication of many hands.
That philosophy has deep roots. Bill Huston studied furniture making in Norway before returning to Maine and joining the early team at Thomas Moser. After spending more than a decade helping grow that company, he decided to strike out on his own. As Saer explains it, growth of Moser's had created distance between the work and the customer.
"He lost contact with the customers, which was always one of the aspects he was most passionate about" Saer said. "And he went off on his own in 1988."
What began as a one-man shop gradually evolved into the company that exists today. Saer was never expected to inherit it. His father deliberately avoided pushing the business onto his children, preferring to let them find their own paths. Saer studied art, became certified to teach, and returned to southern Maine expecting a different future. When he eventually joined the shop in 2003, the veteran craftsmen who worked alongside his father were skeptical.
"The guys in the shop at the time all had bets on how long I was going to last," he recalled. "No one thought I was going to last more than six months."
They lost that bet.
Today, one of the traditions Saer values most has little to do with furniture design and everything to do with responsibility. Every table, cabinet, desk, and case piece that leaves the shop is branded, dated, and signed by the person who built it. The signatures are rarely visible to customers. They are hidden beneath tabletops, inside cabinets, and underneath drawers where only a future repair, restoration, or curious owner might discover them. To the people who work here, however, those marks matter. A craftsman who signs a piece knows that his name will remain attached to it for decades. If the furniture ever returns to the shop, everyone knows exactly who built it.
The practice reflects a level of accountability that is increasingly uncommon. It also reflects pride.
Throughout the tour, Saer points out pieces signed by employees who selected the lumber, shaped the joinery, assembled the furniture, and carried the project from rough boards to finished product. The signature serves as a quiet reminder that craftsmanship is still personal.
That perspective extends to the people who ultimately use the furniture. When asked whether he ever thinks about the students studying at the tables his company builds, Saer immediately recalls a project at Princeton University. While working in a historic lecture hall where Albert Einstein once lectured, he found himself thinking less about the building and more about the generations of students who had occupied the same room.
"It is cool to be a part of that scene where some of the most motivated people are looking to learn and are going to move on to do incredible things," he said.
For Saer, furniture is not simply an object. It becomes part of the setting where life unfolds. Students study at it. Families gather around it. Conversations happen across it. Ideas take shape on its surface. Long after the builders have moved on, the furniture remains.
Later in the interview, the conversation turns to Bill. Officially, he retired several years ago. Unofficially, retirement appears to be a flexible arrangement.
"He'll probably be in at 11 o'clock asking, 'What can I do? What can I help with?'"
Saer laughs when he says it. Then his tone becomes more reflective.
"The more he steps away, the more I realize how unique and special to be able to work with your dad."
It is an easy observation to overlook amid discussions of handcrafted furniture, Ivy League libraries, and nearly four decades of business. Yet it may be the most revealing thing said all morning.
For all the furniture that has left this shop, the story of Huston & Company is ultimately about relationships. It is about a father who built a business and never pressured his children to join it. It is about a son who found his own way back. It is about craftsmen whose names remain attached to their work long after it leaves Arundel. And it is about the quiet accumulation of trust that allows a small Maine company to furnish homes, schools, libraries, and universities across the country.
Before leaving, I ask Saer about his unusual first name.
For most of the morning, I had assumed it was a family name. Instead, he explains that it is Welsh and carries a meaning that is remarkably connected to the life he eventually chose.
"It means one who works with wood, or woodworker."
The name came into his parents' lives at a time when his father was becoming increasingly serious about furniture making. They liked it, and it stayed with them.
Saer admits that the name has not always been easy to carry.
"It's a love-hate relationship," he says with a laugh. "Everyone I meet, I've got to say it a couple times and spell it for them." Again, it's 'AIR' but with an 'S' in front.
Over the years, however, he has come to appreciate its uniqueness.
"I've learned to appreciate it and that uniqueness. I've only met one or two other Saers in my life."
The coincidence feels almost too perfect. A father becomes a furniture maker. A son is given a name that means woodworker. The son studies art, imagines a different future, and eventually finds himself back in the family shop, surrounded by lumber, drawings, craftsmen, and furniture bound for destinations he never could have imagined as a child.
Whether that feels like destiny or simply a good story depends on your perspective.
Either way, the work continues.
Outside, Ruby, the shop dog, wanders the property while another day unfolds inside the shop. A craftsman sands a tabletop. A cabinet waits for its final finish. Another signature will soon be added beneath a piece of furniture destined for a home, a library, or a classroom somewhere beyond Maine.
Downstairs, the map still hangs on the wall.
But the next chapter of the story won't be written there.
It will be written beneath the furniture.
Many thanks to Saer Huston for his time on Friday, May 29, 2026 at Huston & Co. offices.
Visit the Huston & Company showroom at 226 Log Cabin Road, Kennebunkport, Maine 04046
Follow them on instagram at instagram.com/hustonandcompany
Visit them online at: www.hustonandcompany.com
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