This photo shows Christian Lyndaker standing before a piece of inlay that he made for a desk. “The desk top shown in the picture contains more than 9,000 pieces of wood of more than 40 different species. It was planed and assembled with great care. At the age of 87 he continues to build fine furniture” (January 1955 The Northeastern Logger).
Christian’s son, Ednor Lyndaker, though a master craftsman in his own right, never learned wood inlay from his father. Later on in his life, after his father had been gone many years, Ednor decided that he wanted to start making wood inlay furniture as well. He visited his siblings who had the few pieces of furniture his father had made (including the desk with the top pictured above). Ednor painstakingly traced each pattern and determined what species of wood were represented.
Christian Lyndaker’s work was done mostly by hand, with each pattern created individually. Ednor knew that in order to make multiple pieces of furniture in a timely manner, he would have to develop a system for creating wood patterns. Combining his furniture-making expertise and his wood inlay system, he subsequently began to make and sell fine pieces of wood inlaid furniture, including desks, coffee tables, and end tables to name a few. Many of his pieces were donated to the Beaver River auction in upstate New York and can be found in a number of homes in the area. Ednor also made several pieces of furniture for his family, including small cedar chests for each of his grandkids.
In early 2000 and 2001, Ednor’s grandson, Keith Lyndaker, having expressed an interest in learning the craft, visited New York on two subsequent occasions to study his grandfather’s techniques. Over the years, Keith used inlay in renovating a cottage in West Virginia and in making some small pieces of furniture, primarily with patterns that his Grandpa made.
On a visit to New York in 2016, after reflecting on the ten year anniversary of Ednor’s passing, Keith and his father, Milford Lyndaker, a master carpenter as well, began talking about ways to continue the wood inlay legacy. Milford has used his father’s inlay in a variety of handicrafts.
The wood found in much of the Lyndaker Inlay products was purchased by Ednor and given to his son and grandson, with many of the pieces still bearing his hand-scrawled descriptions.
The patterns on our furniture are all created using the system developed by Ednor Lyndaker, and were made by his own hands or by the hands of his son and grandson.
Lyndaker Inlay 