PROFILE
J.K. ADAMS
BY ANDREW MCKEEVER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID BARNUM
American Made.
Guaranteed for Life.
The subtitle on the J.K. Adams catalogue, “American made. Guaranteed for life,” may
not tell you all you need to know about the wood and slate kitchenware products made
by the 75-year-old company based in Dorset, Vermont, but it sure is close.
Everything they make and sell comes out of the 40,000-plus-square-foot manufacturing
facility located adjacent to the in-house retail shop that serves as the point of entry for
customers. The shop offers a variety of products, and prominent among them are the
wooden kitchen boards and wine racks made a few yards away behind the back walls of
the shop.
At one end of the building, pallets of wood panels are delivered in a wide variety of
shapes and sizes, all made of North American hardwoods such as maple, walnut, cherry,
ash, and others. From there, depending on what those panels will be turned into, they
make a circuitous journey around a large, open room to be milled, routed, and otherwise
shaped, using state-of-the-art computer-controlled equipment before being hand-finished
and inspected. The wood is smoothed, oiled, stained, painted, or branded to emerge as a
finished product—an item ready for sale—either in their own shop or to be delivered to
one of their customers, often a well-known retailer such as Williams Sonoma, Crate &
Barrel, Bed, Bath and Beyond, or Common Goods.
This is also the end-point of a design process that begins in a room on the building’s
second floor, where a team spends a lot of time thinking about what will satisfy the evolving
needs and tastes of consumers. “Coming up with unique, practical, and attractive designs
are what set the company apart,” says owner Malcolm Cooper Jr.
12 STRATTON MAGAZINE | STRATTON MAGAZINE.COM
“Coming up with unique,
practical, and attractive
designs are what set the
company apart.”
- Owner Malcolm Cooper Jr.