Like most children, Léo Féau spent many long afternoons playing hide-and-seek with his siblings. But while other kids hid in closets and under beds, Léo and his brother and sisters had the run of Féau Boiseries, the original home of the family’s atelier where boiserie—the art of creating intricately carved wood panels—has been practiced since 1875.
“I grew up playing between an 18th-century Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and an Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann in the atelier,” Léo says. “It is an incredible space.”
Tucked partway down a quiet street in Paris’s Ternes neighborhood (just a handful of blocks from the Arc de Triomphe), Féau Boiseries is a 20,000-square-foot showroom dedicated to the craft, history, and preservation of French wood paneling. A labyrinthine delight, the space unfolds from room to room like a treasure trove. Some areas include fully reproduced chambers, like the dramatic Percier Fontaine salon, which features Etruscan-red walls and a ceiling with ornate black detailing that dates to 1806; others are a seemingly haphazard collection of individual panels of varying sizes and origins. The Féau Boiseries collection is among the largest in the world, including carved, painted, and gilded pieces dating from the 18th through the 20th century. Some rooms remain unrestored, as, according to Léo’s father, Guillaume Féau, “we like to use the antique patina of the paint and wood as inspiration for projects.” (The company also salvages historic fireplaces, moldings, and architectural fragments.) One room is capped with a magnificent Gustave Eiffel–designed glass ceiling believed to be from the 1878 Exposition Universelle.
Like his father, his grandfather, Joël Féau, and his great-grandfather, Guy Féau, Léo is passionate about boiserie, from its deep savoir-faire roots to its continuing legacy. In March, he is helping his father open the company’s first New York showroom, alongside Anthony Fournier, the COO of Féau Boiseries. Located in the D&D Building, the new space will help mark the house’s 150th anniversary.
The re-created Percier Fontaine salon at Féau Boiseries is a striking entry point to the atelier.
Jacques Pepion
“The company started in 1875,” says Guillaume, who codirects the brand with his sister Angélique Féau Leborgne. The operation was founded by Charles Fournier, a decorator who specialized in ornamental painting and gilding. “The market was really booming at the time,” Guillaume says of Fournier’s Belle Époque–era success. “Between 1875 and World War I, the company [worked for] a lot of big industrial fortunes and, on top that, some important American clients like Henry Clay Frick and the Rothschilds—we were supplying French decor to the big interior designers and architects of that period, specializing in panels, painting, gilding, plaster, and crown moldings.”
Fournier rose to be one of the most sought-after craftsmen in France, but the start of World War I forced him to close the workshop’s doors as his employees were called to the front lines. Many did not survive, and by 1917 Fournier had to sell the business to another decorator, Raymond Grellou, who caught a new wave of sensibilities coming out of the war and moved the shop away from gilding and painting and toward upholstery.
In 1963, Guillaume’s father, Joël, purchased the workshop with the help of his father, Guy, and gave it the family name. Both men had a passion for design, and each had worked for noted figures in the industry. (Guy was a former assistant to the Art Deco–era decorator and furniture designer Jean Pascaud, and Joël worked at Maison Jansen, under Stéphane Boudin, who is best known for overseeing the redesign of the apartments at the White House for Jackie Kennedy.)
“After I came to work with [my father], I decided to return to the original business, like it was before World War I: a supplier for architects and designers,” says Guillaume. “We were developing business and supplying big architects and designers like Peter Pennoyer and Bunny Williams. We started developing a huge market in America but also internationally, in London, Bangkok, and Tokyo.”
Féau Boiseries specializes in re-creating historic, or historic-inspired, wall paneling with the 21st century in mind. (The firm rarely sells the originals, as they are difficult to fit into a project and can cost several millions of dollars before installation.) Unlike their 19th-century predecessors, the current Féau Boiseries team must consider integrated wiring, lighting, HVAC, and audio-visual systems when they build.
“If [a client] wants to appear as if they have an original historic French room or house, there’s no one better than Féau to help with those interiors,” says San Francisco–based residential architect Andrew Skurman. “There are other people who sell period rooms, but what’s great about Guillaume is he can take pieces of any period rooms, cast them, and put them together to fit the solid and void elements of each facade. So, in other words, he works around the windows and doors and makes it all fit together like a puzzle.”
Féau Boiseries employs highly skilled craftspeople, who go through a minimum two-year training process.
Jordan Prot
Much of the company’s success comes down to its coterie of craftspeople. Féau Boiseries is a member of the Comité Colbert, a group of nearly 100 French maisons and six European brands committed to hiring skilled makers across various trade sectors. “The organization is all about training the artisans and keeping alive the whole idea of French luxury, French savoir faire, and making sure we never lose those techniques,” says Léo. “We have an atelier just for woodwork, one for lacquer, another for straw marquetry.” With woodworking shops outside Paris and in Bordeaux and Brittany—and a minimum two-year training period—the company is continuing the centuries-old handcraft tradition and providing opportunities for those looking to pivot careers or for whom a conventional educational path doesn’t fit.
“Not everyone wants to go into tech,” Guillaume says. “We have seen situations with people who have spent 10 years in banking or tech, and they want to do something different—they want to do something with their hands.”
The average project with Féau Boiseries takes between 14 and 16 months, with some stretching two to three years. “People look at these panels in the sense that, yes, it is part of their home,” Skurman says. “But I think they look at them like one-of-a-kind art—it’s a major investment.”