Spanish Colonial furniture is known for its fine craftsmanship, which is evident in this carved Borbon Settee-a reproduction of an 18th-century Mexican piece.

Imagine traveling 400 years back in time to the colonial Southwest. If you could enter a home—even the fanciest in town—chances are you would find the interiors surprisingly austere. Colonial residences during this period were furnished with just a few high-quality, handmade pieces of furniture: perhaps a hand-hewn bench with knots along the grain, a rustic chest with hand-carved rosettes, or a pine cupboard with tin panels.

Centuries later, the beauty, authenticity and strong presence of Spanish Colonial furniture still captivate Southwestern residents. “Today’s homes are going through changes in design style and decoration, but one of the constants is the use of Spanish Colonial furniture,” notes Allan Bone of Scottsdale’s Allan N. Bone Gallery. Even with evolving tastes in interior design, these simple, rustic looks persist, deeply ingrained in the spirit of the Southwest. “Spanish Colonial style is an important part of our heritage,” says Sue Calvin of Wiseman & Gale Interiors in Scottsdale. “It’s classic.”

Classic Origins
Spanish Colonial furniture is one of the richest craft legacies in the United States. The tradition traces its roots to the earliest carpinteros, woodworkers who established Hispanic communities as they moved northward from Mexico along the Rio Grande river in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Artisans set up workshops to create furniture, wrought-iron pieces, pottery and other necessities in their new communities. Like their Spanish ancestors, who had long-established trade guilds, they, too, organized themselves into specialized craftsmen groups.

For these early carpinteros, necessity was the mother of invention. They found the Southwest’s great ponderosa pines and junipers brittle, tending to crack along the grain. In addition, they had limited supplies and simple woodworking tools like the adz, chisel and saw. As a result, craftsmen toned down the ornate, curvilinear Baroque forms that they knew from Spanish and Mexican furniture made at the same time, instead carving straight, simple lines—a reflection of their priority for surviving in the harsh new homeland. They limited ornate forms to carved relief across the surface, with scrolls, shells and floral motifs drawn from Spanish decorative tradition. Out of these modifications, craftspeople began to forge a distinctive regional style that stood on its own with bold lines and rustic simplicity.