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Pete Hajdu Biography

I was born in 1963 in Norwalk, Connecticut.  My father, a first generation Hungarian,  was a tool and die maker by trade.  In 1975, he started making wooden toys.  I was in 6th grade and began helping him by making wheels for the toys.  This business eventually became Hajdu’s Country Furniture.   In 1983, I graduated from Alliance College in PA with a degree in Tool and Die Design and Drafting and discovered along the way that this was definitely not my calling. My father had passed away my senior year at college and so I returned to continue his business and pursue a career of creating fine handcrafted furniture.  My mother sold the business several years later which sent me wandering.  I spent the next five years doing production furniture before moving to Italy.  I stayed four years there, then two at West Point – doing things totally unrelated to fine furniture making.  Moving to California, I finally ended up in Monterey where I met and studied with Ambrose Pollock, a well-known custom furniture maker. We focused on the Arts and Crafts and Shaker styles in addition to custom pieces.  During this time I developed an appreciation of and skills for fine joinery, wood selection regarding continuous grain, book matching, and finishing.   I moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1998.  In 2000 I started Harwood House LLC and have since been working mostly with designers translating their concepts into beautiful furniture.