Crafting Icons Of The Past

To achieve the appearance of age and wear that he needed for the furnishings in his houses, Mizner created his own antiques. He worked up a material called Woodbite, a composite of wood shavings and plaster of Paris, which when molded turned out uncannily authentic-looking ceilings and doors. His studios made ceramic roof and floor tiles, wrought-iron grilles and hardware, and furniture, which his workmen antiqued by scraping with broken glass or beating with chains. Some surviving examples are shown here.