Architectural ironwork · Ridgway, Colorado
Every piece of iron in the house, made for that house
Bennett Forgeworks designs, forges and fabricates custom ironwork for the houses of Telluride, Mountain Village and the Western Slope. Twenty-seven years, one shop, no two pieces alike.
Commission a piece →01 · The gate
It starts at the drive
A gate is the first thing a house says. Ours are forged by hand from solid bar, drawn and scrolled at the anvil, fitted to the stone and the snow line, and hung to swing for fifty winters. Touch a photograph and the iron warms: that is the forge, still in the metal.
02 · The entry
The door, and the hand on it
Steel doors glazed to the stone, hinges and pulls forged to the weight of the slab, escutcheons and brackets made one at a time. The hardware is where a house is touched every day, so it is where we spend the most care.
03 · The stair
The stair carries the house
A railing is a line you follow with your hand for the life of the house. We draw it on the wall of the shop first, full size, forge the leaves and the twists, and set it against the stone so that it reads from the entry and holds under a crowd.
04 · The hearth
Where the house gathers
Fireplace doors and screens take the heat for decades, so they are forged heavy and hung true. Arched to the stone, glazed or screened, with a handle that stays cool and a detail, a leaf or a pair of beasts, that the family will know by heart.
05 · The table
Steel you live with
Tables, kitchens, paneling and floors in steel, built to the architect's drawing and finished to the hand. Fabrication is the other half of the shop: the same crew, the same standard, a different fire.
06 · The light
Fixtures forged to the beam
Chandeliers and sconces hung from the timbers, forged to the scale of the room and wired to code. Iron and candlelight were made for each other; we only put them back together.
07 · The terrace
Out to the view
Exterior rails and fences that stand to the weather at nine thousand feet: forged pickets, riveted rails, a line that lets the mountains through. Built for new construction and set into finished homes without a mark on them.
The shop
Twenty-seven years at the north end of the San Juans
Bennett Forgeworks is Tom Bennett and a crew of fabricators who are executing on their calling, not holding a job at a metal shop. We work closely with the owner, the architect, the builder and the designer to refine a design that results in genuine satisfaction, and we are as at home inside a finished house as on a new build. The shop is in Ridgway, Colorado. The work is in Telluride, Mountain Village, Ouray, Silverton, Durango, Aspen and beyond.
Commission a piece
Tell us about the house
A conversation first, then a drawing, then the forge. Whether you are a builder, an architect, an interior designer or the owner, we will provide a free estimate or submit a bid.