“E.R. Butler & Co. continues to partner with manufacturers who share the same ideals of unique, distinguished, honest, and ethical products, with great attention to detail and an emphasis on the hand-made. Within the field of hardware, but also extending to jewelry, porcelain, and glassware, they carefully curate products to make them work for the American market.”
E.R. Butler & Co. is a premium quality custom manufacturer of fine architectural, builders’ and cabinetmakers’ hardware.
In its modern incarnation the company was established in 1966, with its headquarters in New York City; however, E.R. Butler & Co.’s lineage dates to the early 1800s, and includes such historic firms as E. Robinson & Co. (1839), Wm. Hall & Co. (1843), the John Tein Co. (1883), the W.C. Vaughan Co. (1902), L.S. Hall & Co. (1911), and Ostrander & Eshleman, Inc. (1921).
After an initial interest in supplying North America with fine European hardware – notably the historic Maison J. Vervloet-Faes, well known for its early French and Flemish patterns and its collection of Art Nouveau hardware – E.R. Butler & Co. began an exploration into the history of American hardware. At this time the W.C. Vaughan Co. offered Rhett Butler the opportunity to reengineer their historic line of Early American, Federal and Georgian period hardware for doors, windows, and fine furniture. Driven by this collaboration, E.R. Butler & Co. shifted focus to American period hardware, especially that produced in New England between 1830–80. This collaboration was formalized by E.R. Butler & Co.’s merger with the W.C. Vaughan Co. in 2000.
The Robinson-Hall-Vaughan-Butler lineage covers 200 years of hardware manufacturing in the United States. The E.R. Butler & Co. Research Library’s archives contain more than ten thousand original drawings, tools, and models, and holds more than fifty thousand publications, including period catalogues, books, and other ephemera related to the manufacture of hardware. The drawings represent a collective knowledge of thousands of early period structures, as well as the mid-century modern work of such architectural masters as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. It is the largest collection of its kind in the world.
More than simply replicating period hardware, E.R. Butler & Co. seeks to revitalize a strong American tradition through a greater understanding of its place in history and by incorporating efficient modern technologies into its production.