Traditional to Modern

Frank Vargo handcrafts fine traditional Windsor chairs, while teaching a new generation to reinvent woodworking.

Cross-hatching and the use of triangular shapes are engineering methods applied to woodworking that enhances the strength of the delicate-looking, but sturdy Windsor-style chair.

In 1978, a teenaged Frank Vargo was walking up some snowdrifts on a pair of snowshoes he had built himself when a local traditional woodworker happened to drive by. Fred Urbank noticed the shoes and asked the young man if he was interested in woodworking. Thus, a long-standing friendship was struck between the fatherless teen and the older man, who taught young Vargo woodworking and set his protege on the road to becoming one of Northeast Ohio’s most sought-after master craftsmen.

The young man worked for his mentor, traveling with him for years teaching seminars on dovetailing. He also obtained a technical college degree and worked at millwork and commercial cabinet shops, before striking out on his own, where he experienced success building fine museum reproductions of chairs and a wide array of other projects.

“I’ve built everything,” Vargo says, “from timber frame bridges to framing homes. I’m really good at cutting joints (especially difficult “bird’s mouth” joints) and making wood fit together.”

The Doylestown, OH-based Vargo built his reputation without advertising, with word-of-mouth primarily serving to bring a wide range of projects to his door throughout the years. Additionally, he became well-known for the production of fine Windsor-style chairs.

According to Vargo, these chairs reached their pinnacle in the 1760s when furnituremakers mastered the knowledge of the materials used and how to manipulate them.
“In a traditional Windsor chair,” Vargo says, “you look for a straight-grain tree that will split nicely. One of the keys to why these chairs work is that there is really more air than chair. It’s the negative space that really makes them work: the space between the parts.

This chair with a hinged backrest is an example of Frank Vargo’s more modern designs.

“You can turn a leg out of a green piece of wood thinner. The grain runs along the long axis, capitalizing on the strength of the wood. You can cut thinner, so it looks lighter and more elegant,” he continues. “You can make bold turnings, like have a great big goblet shape, but it can get very thin at the neck because you’ve still got the grain running straight through it.