Needham Woodworks

Erik Needham is a second-generation woodworker who creates bespoke furniture that blends timeless craftsmanship with modern design. His work ranges from custom dining tables and cabinets to one-of-a-kind credenzas and recording desks, each piece made to anchor the spaces where people live, gather, and create.

Operating out of the oldest dedicated woodworking space in San Francisco, Erik has shifted his focus from building modular synth cabinets to crafting fine furniture with a musical soul. Whether designed for a home or a studio, his pieces reflect both artistry and utility, furniture built to be as enduring as the memories and music it helps inspire.

Ben Coney runs our Jack London Square showroom and leads our work with design firms. With a background in interior design, Ben knows how a table has to work within a whole room, from scale and finish to how it sits alongside everything else in the space. If you’re a designer, or working with one, he’s the person to talk to.

John McGuire leads the team in our San Francisco shop. A fifth-generation San Franciscan, he comes from a family that has watched this city reinvent itself many times over, and he builds like someone who plans to stay: tables made to be lived at for decades and handed down. He has been woodworking professionally since he was 21. John is a man of few words. He would rather show you a clean joint than describe one, and on the shop floor he lets the work do the talking.

Born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District, Daniel’s path from stage building to fine art fabrication shaped his love for hands-on craftwork. His experience building sculptures for Anthony James Studio honed the precision and eye for detail he now brings to every table he finishes. He works out of our Oakland shop.

Dustin Stern spent seven years building custom furniture in New Zealand before joining us. He works out of our Oakland shop. Yes, those are shorts. In a woodshop. We’ve stopped asking.

Matt Upmeyer has 12 years of professional experience building cabinets and fine furniture. He moved to San Francisco from Detroit in 2011. He’s also a luthier, and he brings an instrument maker’s precision to every piece. He works out of our Oakland shop.

Devon Carsen started framing houses in his early teens. In his twenties he built farm infrastructure, homesteaded two properties, and put up his first house. About eight years ago he made woodworking a career, apprenticing as a finish carpenter, and has since handled everything from full floor remodels to custom cabinet builds and installs, often running the job as a bags-on foreman. He is also a singer and visual artist, and whatever he’s working on, his instinct is the same: take what is already there and bring out more of it. In the shop that means reading a board for the figure just beneath the surface and building so that it shows. He works out of our Oakland shop.

Coda Concannon cut his teeth as a carpenter with Levitch Associates in Berkeley, about a year of real-world building before he went back to school in 2020, with carpentry training from Laney College in his back pocket. He showed up already knowing how to make things square, plumb and strong. Now he gets to make them beautiful too. He works out of our San Francisco shop.

Archie Japaridze comes to us from the world of art and scenic fabrication, where he built Temples at Burning Man and architectural showpieces for large events. He loves taking an artistic idea and turning it into a finished build with care and collaboration, which is a fair description of what happens at a table here too, just at a scale that fits through a front door. He works out of our San Francisco shop.

Rudy Colón is our resident Eurorack cabinet master. He comes into our San Francisco shop for special custom commissions for modular synthesizers, work that is now part of Eskatonic Modular. A seasoned DJ and modular synth user himself, he brings that background and a player’s insight to every design Erik comes up with.

Jade Gregory is a data scientist turned apprentice. It takes nerve to start a new craft from the beginning, and we’re glad Jade chose ours. Jade works out of our San Francisco shop.

Tressa Digianvittorio describes herself as “excited always,” and nobody in the shop would argue. An artist at heart who loves to learn, she moved up from Watsonville about a year ago and is working toward school and a career in tattoo art. But working with wood has been the dream all along, and Erik is helping her make it happen. She works out of our San Francisco shop.

Willa is in sixth grade and works weekends with her dad, which makes her the only member of the crew with homework due Monday. She is paid in pizza and ice cream. She has not asked for a raise yet, but we expect negotiations to get tougher every year. She splits her weekends between the Oakland and San Francisco shops.

Rescued from a San Francisco shelter, this little maniac is a full-sized pit bull on dachshund legs. He started out as a bit of a challenge, but after some training he’s turned out to be an absolute sweetheart of a beast. He keeps the crew in line and on time.