chuck comeau: coming home
by sally finder-koziol, renovation style magazine, spring 2007

OPRAH WINFREY BUYS FURNITURE FROM A GUY WHO WORKS OUT OF A 1920S CAR DEALER SHIP ON THE PRAIRIE—and also does business in an old trailer shop, meat locker, and slaughterhouse. So do Elton John, Bill Gates, and others with big names and big fortunes. And it’s all because “a schmuck in Kansas” decided a little more than a decade ago to send a few snapshots of his home interior re-do to a design magazine.

“When Architectural Digest liked my ideas, it was the first time it dawned on me that design could be my career,” says the self-described schmuck, better known in the furniture world as Dessin Fournir founder Chuck Comeau.

Before that, design was merely fun for the kid who liked art class but got a degree in petroleum geology, the man who delighted in collecting art and antiques but earned a living in cattle, banking, and oil. “Being raised in rural Kansas,” Chuck says, “you don’t really see what you can do with an art degree.”

But the potential became evident in 1993, with the birth of Dessin Fournir. The small company, with its exclusive collection of pieces interpreted from the best of 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century European styles, quickly grew into one of the top five luxury home-furnishings firms in the nation and had Chuck continually hopping from his home to production facilities in Los Angeles. Enough was enough, he decided. Dessin Fournir would move to Plainville, Kansas, population 2,200.

“The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages,” Chuck says of doing business in his hometown. ‘The quality of staff is unbelievable. The people are genuine, real—they’re my friends.  And there is a different pace here than in a city.  It’s peaceful, and your mind can kind of wander.  It’s a great think-tank environment.”

For Chuck, meandering thoughts often prowl through old buildings. “I travel a lot, and I’ve seen what can be done with old architecture,” he says. “In Plainville , I saw that architecture sitting right in front of my face.”

He made the most of it, first renovating an abandoned car dealership into Dessin Fournir’s corporate offices. Then came five more structures in Plainville , and another 11 in the nearby community of Hays.  Next on the agenda is shaping the original Bloomingdale’s stable into his New York City showroom. “We peel off things that have been added to the original architecture and design back to that,” Chuck says. “Sometimes we find a tremendous amount of damage. It can be very expensive. But renovating creates results that I couldn’t have dreamed of. Bringing that beauty out is a wonderful thing for me.”

That wonder extends to the people of Plainville and Hays, who congregate in downtown areas abuzz with renewed life. “I remember being downtown as a kid—people walking and talking,” Chuck says. “People want that place that had ceased to exist—a place to spend time together and feel a sense of community.”

They’re getting it in a growing number of small towns across the country.  “It’s happening right now—just down the road in Palco, Kansas, for example,” Chuck says. “All it takes is someone who wants to do it.”

In Plainville , that someone is Chuck. “This is my home,” he says. “I want to leave something, to show the world that you don’t have to live in a city to have

a great quality of life.” It can be found at the new farmhouse-techie-style restaurant and microbrewery—once a cold, dank, and collapsing Western Union building in Hays—and at other renovated downtown hot spots.

The allure of this chic oasis halfway between Kansas City and Denver even pulls the city set off 1-70 for a few hours, or maybe an entire weekend. They come in with that Andy-in-Mayberry idea and leave thinking, I was wrong,” Chuck says. “We represent the potential for rural communities. I mean, how bizarre can you get? We manufacture furniture for the richest of the rich in small-town Kansas . If we can do this, you can do anything.”

Want more?

Check out these Web sites:

• www.chestnutstreetdistrict.com

• www.lbbrewing.com/history.html

• www.dessinfournir.com

• www.cspost.com