Pool anyone? A winner in the specialty products category, this custom pool table by Dorset Custom Furniture, with its eye-catching drop pockets and statuesque legs, had Design Portfolio Award judges wanting to pick up cue sticks and play a game.

According to Dan Mosheim, president of Dorset Custom Furniture, this pool table is constructed mainly of mahogany and walnut, supplied by Irion Lumber in Wellsboro, PA. “The side rail panels are quarter-sawn, curly soft maple by Battenkill Wood Products of Arlington, VT, and the appliques on the legs are ebony from Trade Winds of Grafton, VT. The slate is commercial, 1-inch-backed slate. Also, there are some poplar and oak secondary woods supporting the slate,� Mosheim says.

Mosheim adds the pool table was designed for a large “game barn.� A key issue was “to design something of substance to occupy the soaring space and live up to the rest of the architecture and construction, which was an antique barn frame erected between a stone silo (stairway) and a traditional pair of stone ends,� he says.

This custom pool table, constructed of mahogany and walnut, is a continuation of the traditional pool table designs of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries that were mostly created by the Brunswick Corp.

Mosheim’s other designs for the client were “rooted in the historical styles of the 18th and 19th century,� he says, “It was important that the pool table have the same serious, historic tone.�

Mosheim started with inspiration from the “Popular� model, a pool table design from the 1920s by the Brunswick Corp. He added mouldings, woods and stains from pallettes already developed from working on the client’s other furnishings.

The table’s base cabinet is constructed with four solid legs, bandsawed, final-shaped and smoothed by hand, Mosheim says, and joined to an angled case above. The long side rails are butt-jointed with large (dry) dowels and square head bolts, which allow the cabinet to be broken down into two short ends (with legs) and two rails.

Equipment used in the construction of the table include Delta and Powermatic table saws and widebelt sanders, an SCMI jointer, planer and bandsaw, and Makita and Porter-Cable hand-held power tools, he adds.

Cushions, blinds and rail details above the pool table’s cabinet are assembled to standard specs of modern tables, Mosheim says, “allowing us to have a traditional look, yet give the table a tournament quality, modern play.

“It is not a reproduction, yet it is based in historical styles and has an instant historic feel,� Mosheim says. “It is a design that will continue to fit the decor of a home well into the future.�