Milling Road Introduces New Designs by Designer Darryl Carter

Furniture World News Desk on 12/27/2017

Wayne Dining Chair and Fold Round Dining Table.

Baker recently announced that it has collaborated with the designer Darryl Carter to introduce fourteen new designs in a line extension for the company’s well-loved Milling Road collection.

For Milling Road, Darryl Carter’s new concepts bring a refined clarity and freshness to traditional crafts and fine artisan traditions, like Chinoiserie and gilding techniques. Darryl Carter honors the classic furniture design that inspired his highly successful Milling Road collection. At the same time, he is a very practical designer creating versatile new designs that clearly acknowledge and address the pragmatic and functional requirements of 21st- century design.

The new designs allow designers and homeowners the flexibility to create environments with history and a contemporary sense of relaxation. As always with Carter’s fine-tuned designs, classical references have been deftly contrasted with a modern clean-lined attitude, such as metal frames and a linear new metal bed design. Each piece is an heirloom of the future, demonstrating classic strong bones and the facility to last a lifetime.

The designer’s restrained touch is fine-tuned to today’s changing global stylistic references and sensibilities. To each new design he brings his signature refinement and sense of craftsmanship. His collection for Milling Road is a careful balance of the modern with the classic, and the simple with the elaborate, evocative of his personal evolution as a designer.

“This is a collection that builds upon itself and allows someone who is designing a home –whether their own or for a client–to select among the offerings knowing that they were all designed to work together, no matter the combination,” noted Darryl Carter.

Highlights of Darryl Carter’s fourteen-piece line extensions include case goods and upholstered pieces:

1. The “Pierce” end table, a clean-lined and ultra-versatile side table with an artful two-toned design that is both sculptural and very practical. It is crafted in powder-coated metal with either whitewashed mahogany or classic richly toned mahogany.


2. The “Hunt” desk, an elegant curved desk with a useful extension and a refined silhouette. It’s offered with a traditional leather inset, with a classic mahogany finish and antique brass trim and hardware.


3. The “Metal Canopy Bed” is an unusual hybrid of metal with a parchment patinated Chinoiserie profile.


4. The “Champlain” secretary has a bold, pared-down silhouette finished in a dramatic dark Chinoiserie lacquer with antique brass hardware. The characters and scenes in the Chinoiserie are specifically scaled to display a rich and multi-layered effect. The tall dimension and refined concept offer many uses in a variety of interiors. Carter has noted that a traditional secretary design is extremely versatile, providing storage, space for electronics, and a neat and very defined enclosed space that brings everything into focus.


5. The “X” bench was inspired by a versatile and decorative piece in Carter’s own collection. The superbly scaled bench has a graceful curved silhouette and beautifully defined arms. The piece lends itself to multiple uses and placement. It’s offered in black-brushed lacquer with bronze accents.


6. The sleek silhouette of Carter’s new metal-framed chair is designed with modern family dining in mind. The “Wayne” design is offered in a dining chair, a counter stool and a bar stool. Upholstered and comfortable, it has a low back and a simple very stable frame. It’s offered with three different modern finishes: white powder coat, gray powder coat, or blackened steel. It’s an elegant solution that designers have requested. As always, Milling Road listens to its customers, and its designers find perfect solutions.

New iterations of existing finishes are also among the highlights of the new additions. For example: an antiqued version of the white lacquer; a smooth blackened steel (versus the existing etched steel); and additional items featuring Carter’s chinoiserie motifs in both light and dark color ways.

Darryl Carter reveres traditional designs. At the same time, he’s a practical designer, in love with versatile design that clearly acknowledges the utilitarian discipline of 21st- century design. His new pieces are sculptural and move easily into a variety of environments. The more classical forms, like the new Champlain secretary, take on a modernity based upon their finishes.

Darryl says of his new line extension, “I am a firm believer in all classical forms, modern or traditional. Classical silhouettes tend to be lasting. With updated restraint, their straight lines, clean angles, and lack of gratuitous embellishment create timeless design that will give lasting pleasure.”

Carter’s collections and his approach have been called the "New Traditional” for his deft pairing of the modern with the antique. This new Milling Road line extension collection speaks to this spirit of both modernity and beautiful traditional silhouettes.

More about Darryl Carter: Darryl Carter’s design vocabulary honors classical elements of the past and present -balancing the modern with the antique and the simple with the ornate. He creates bespoke environments for the individual. A Georgetown Law graduate; he often jokes that his career found him when his first published project landed on the cover of Metropolitan Home.

Darryl’s work is frequently showcased on the covers and pages of the industry’s most preeminent shelter and lifestyle publications, such as Elle Décor, Architectural Digest, Veranda, Traditional Home, House Beautiful and Town & Country. Since it inaugural launch, he has been included on Elle Décor’s “A-List as well as having been a part of Architectural Digest’s “AD-100.”

Darryl’s commissions have expanded from residential to commercial and hospitality. He has completed tech headquarters in San Francisco, La Jolla and New York, two restaurants, a boutique hotel and the public/amenity spaces of several newly constructed mixed-use buildings in Washington, DC – these, in addition to dozens of private homes across the U.S.

Darryl has authored two best-selling books, “The New Traditional” and “The Collected Home”. 2012 saw the opening of his namesake retail boutique in a Pre-Civil War structure in Washington DC’s burgeoning Shaw District. He sits on the Industry Advisory Board of North Carolina State University’s College of Textiles.

His lighting designs are available through The Urban Electric Company – and most recently his full home collection with Baker became available internationally.

More about Milling Road: Founded in 1957 at the original Baker factory address sharing the same name, Milling Road is a leading designer and manufacturer of fine home furnishings, celebrating the bold, and the exceptional, with timeless designs and uncompromising quality. It is distributed worldwide through a network of interior design trade showrooms and luxury home furnishings retailers. The company is a division of Baker Interiors Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samson Investment Holding Co. Baker Interiors Group is comprised of Baker, Milling Road and McGuire Furniture Company.