Former engineer pursues passion for wood

John Lee warns about the messiness of his garage-based woodworking shop, where the floor is covered with sawdust and shavings. On an upstairs table lies a copy of The Intelligent Hand, by a British furniture designer - the February selection from a woodworking book club.

Less than two years ago, employed as a software engineer, Lee says he reached a point when he couldn't stop thinking about woodworking. In 2023, the Philipstown resident left his job to found Bevel-Up Woodworks (bevelupwoodworks.com), which last year was named the best new local business by the Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce.

"I didn't want to wake up 30 years later wishing I had at least tried," he says. "I also wanted more contact with the community and to spend more time with my daughter, which I couldn't do with a two-hour commute into the city."

Bevel-Up satiates Lee's passion for using his hands, turning North American hardwoods like cherry, maple and oak into furniture and household objects. His first-year projects ranged from pencil boxes to a wall cabinet to an 8½-foot-long dining table and seating for an outdoor classroom at Haldane.

The transition began years before it happened, when Lee started watching YouTube videos created by Ishitani Furniture, a Japanese company that shows its craftspeople transforming boards into benches, chairs and tables.

When Lee's wife, a physician, began working at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, the family decided to relocate from Manhattan. Notably, a house in Garrison they toured before buying their Philipstown home in 2018 had a barn with a furniture-making shop. "I had no idea what any of the machines were, but I saw the models the owner had made," he says. "When we moved here, I started doing [projects] around the house."

His first commission at Bevel-Up was a garden bench for his daughter's pre-K school, the Little Friends Learning Loft in the City of Newburgh. After Lee began building a dining table, other requests came in, including one for the octagonal seating area for an outdoor classroom at Haldane.

Lee collaborated with his neighbor, woodworker Dan Upham of WoodSuit, on the project, a commission from the family of Lori Isler, a 1981 Haldane graduate who taught in the district for 30 years before she died of cancer in 2018.

In addition to furniture, Lee has constructed picture frames, including tiny ones for an artist whose oil paintings are as small as 1-inch squares. "Some people know exactly what they want, and they're looking for a fabrication partner," he says. "Some people don't know, and they're coming to me because they're looking for a design partner and a sounding board."

With a few commissions completed, Lee says he is still figuring out the types of furniture that buyers want. He would like to sell at craft fairs, where people can see examples of his work rather than just photos.

The move to woodworking has not been easy but was worth it, said Lee. "For me, taking something from an idea to completion does it," he says. "I live for that moment."