Founder David Peer was certain America would enjoy certain qualities of a lifestyle rooted in the countryside of the old world, where a centuries-old legacy of good living kept people together instead hurrying them out the door.
He also saw the convenience could take us only so far. Expertise could make a kitchen really work, but true artistry recognized that life was about so much more than just working.
So our founders created what they did not find elsewhere.
A best of both worlds approach. . . to reunite Modernity with Tradition by designing social spaces to foster new lifestyles in the spirit of the unhurried past.
The Best of Everything
Since its beginning in 1988 (as “American Hearth & Home”) European Country Kitchens has prospered by fulfilling the promise of better living through one-of-a-kind custom kitchens, inspired interiors, and fantastic furniture. By infusing the new American lifestyle with slow-cooked flavors from an Old World (halfway between history and mystique), the company has perfected its recipe for “social spaces”–those designed to let friends and families enjoy life and each other’s company. By designing around lifestyle instead of room style, they put people in the picture and help keep them there. And it works. “The good life” is a state of mind, and it is one’s surroundings that foster the feelings of contentment and satisfaction that let it happen.
We’re Different
“We’re different,” says President David Peer. “It’s something you can’t capture on film or put in a brochure.” That elusive feeling is shared by European Country Kitchens’ long list of clients, a select group who find us through little black book referrals instead of the Yellow Pages. After a first meeting with David they’re exhilarated. They’ve found company that’s still closer to hearth and home than to the coming and going of fads – Someone’s interested in who they are (how many kids? who cooks? how tall?) instead of which numbered paint chip they prefer. They entered a design studio/showroom, but they’ve actually walked into the good life.
Whatever It Takes
For European Country Kitchens, bringing “whatever it takes” to an already challenging design philosophy meant adopting its own brand of craftsmanship, and creating its own brand of custom cabinetry. “We knew we’d have to do it ourselves,” Peer reminisces. From the artists who draft early concepts, to the customer advocates who inspect every completed job site, David’s enduring entrepreneurial spirit is everywhere. There’s energy in day-to-day operations. There’s pride when someone signs, “from our hands to your home.”
Pride and quality are much more than buzzwords here.
These values continue to resonate because the company today is like a family—glued together by years of hard work and shared experiences. While others settled on standardization, the ECKitchens production team rallied to give the company’s designers a truly unlimited creative palette. (They’d need it to tap the charms of the English farmhouse, the magic in the Provencal cottage, the grace of the contemporary New York hi-rise, or anything else imaginable.) Experts from every trade have joined the team to ace the technicalities; so for all the potential pitfalls of high-end custom work, it’s a remarkably smooth operation (and unsurpassed in its industry). When a client visits the woodshop to meet the artisans creating their handcrafted mantle or butcher-block tabletop, everyone is comfortable. Making people happy is a satisfying job.
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