Designer Furniture as Cultural Artifact: A Guide to the Pieces That Defined Eras

There’s a particular kind of person who walks into a room and notices the furniture before they notice the people. This isn’t because they lack social graces, but rather because they understand something fundamental: the objects we choose to live among tell stories we never consciously decide to tell. Consider the sofa you inherited from your grandmother, the coffee table you found at an estate sale in East Hampton, or the dining chairs you paid too much for and never regretted.

In the Hamptons, where summer houses become theaters for social performance, furniture occupies a peculiar cultural position. Moreover, real estate staging can make or break a $15 million sale. As a result, each piece must signal taste without trying too hard, wealth without vulgarity, and history without mustiness. Ultimately, the best pieces accomplish what interior designers call “visual authority,” commanding a room without dominating it.

David Hornung understood this dynamic when he relocated from California to the Hamptons in 2001. Together with partner Jason Fisher, he founded D&J Concepts. Since then, they’ve staged approximately 30 luxury homes across the East End, from Westhampton to Montauk, developing what Hornung calls a “modern transitional style that incorporates antiques and modern elements for an unexpected edge.”

What follows is an anthropological guide to the designer pieces currently available through D&J Concepts. Importantly, each carries not just a price tag, but a pedigree, a cultural moment, a story worth knowing before you decide whether it belongs in your life.

HOLLY HUNT Leather Coffee Table

Original Retail: $12,500 | Available: $1,950

In 1983, Holly Hunt purchased a modest showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, thereby transforming an old theater space into what would become a $100-million luxury furniture empire. Remarkably, this woman from central Texas had started her career making her own clothes as a sixth grader, dreaming of becoming the next Edith Head. Eventually, she would go on to redefine American luxury interiors entirely.

Hunt’s genius lay not in flash but in restraint. While the 1980s screamed excess, she whispered sophistication instead. Her collections specialized in what design critics call “understatement”: clean lines, soothing palettes of creams, browns, grays, and tans. In essence, this was the furniture equivalent of old money.

This particular leather coffee table represents the peak of Hunt’s design philosophy. Notably, the leather was sourced through her proprietary Holly Hunt Leather collection and ages like fine wine, developing patina that actually increases the piece’s visual interest over time. In 2014, Knoll Industries acquired the company for $95 million, thereby validating what design insiders had known for decades.

Cultural Signal: You understand that true luxury doesn’t announce itself. Furthermore, you’ve moved past the phase where you needed furniture to impress and arrived at the phase where furniture simply needs to endure.

SERGIO TACCHINI Leather Chaise Lounge

Original Retail: $8,500 | Available: $950

Antonio Tacchini founded his eponymous furniture company in 1967 in Brianza, Italy, the region between Como and Milan that serves as the birthplace of Italian design. Although too blindingly green in summer and too grey in winter, this area became the backdrop for what would become a family legacy intertwined with international design history.

Historically, the chaise lounge occupies a peculiar position in furniture anthropology. It emerged from the French “chaise longue,” literally “long chair,” and subsequently became associated with 18th-century aristocratic leisure, psychoanalytic therapy, and Hollywood glamour. In contrast to ornate predecessors, Tacchini’s interpretation strips away decoration to reveal essential form, with leather stretched across the frame like skin over bone.

What distinguishes Tacchini from competitors is the company’s insistence on hands as the primary tool. Even today, craftspeople at the Brianza facility use touch to discern quality and value before transforming materials. Additionally, the adjustable mechanism on this particular piece allows for infinite positioning, from upright conversation to horizontal contemplation.

Cultural Signal: You’ve read enough to know that the best things require patience. Consequently, you don’t rush conversations, decisions, or your afternoon rest.

RALPH LAUREN HOME ‘Mouton’ Dining Chairs

Set of 10 | Original Retail: $10,000+ | Available: $2,500

Ralph Lauren launched his home collection in 1983, the same year Holly Hunt opened her Chicago showroom. Both recognized that the aspirational American was ready to extend their self-expression beyond the closet and into the living space. However, their approaches diverged significantly.

Where Hunt pursued understated European elegance, Lauren went full Americana instead, channeling the visual vocabulary of old money: hunt clubs, Adirondack lodges, Georgetown townhouses. As a result, the phrase “very Ralph Lauren” entered the design lexicon as shorthand for a particular brand of nostalgic sophistication.

This rare set of ten Mouton dining chairs represents Lauren at his most confident. Interestingly, the name itself, French for “sheep,” suggests the sheepskin often used in country estate interiors. Nevertheless, these chairs transcend pastoral quaintness. Theodore Alexander, the current manufacturer of Ralph Lauren Home, produces each piece with the equestrian-inspired detailing and hand-tufted craftsmanship that distinguish the brand from mass-market imitators.

Ten chairs is not an accident—it’s a statement. Essentially, it says: we entertain, we gather, we understand that the dining table is where deals get made, relationships get cemented, and stories get passed down.

Cultural Signal: You host dinners, not dinner parties. The former sounds like something that simply happens at your home because people want to be there, while the latter sounds too planned.

ROCHE BOBOIS Glass Dining Table & Reclining Chairs

Dining Table Original: $3,300 | Available: $1,750

Set of 6 Reclining Chairs Original: $3,500 | Available: $1,500

The Roche Bobois story begins in 1950, when entrepreneur Jacques Roche converted an old Paris theater into two contemporary furniture boutiques so his sons could usher Bauhaus-inspired work into French homes. Then, a decade later, Philippe and François Roche met Jean-Claude and Patrick Chouchan at the Copenhagen Furniture Fair. Consequently, a partnership was born that would bring Scandinavian design sensibility to French manufacturing precision.

By 1974, Roche Bobois had opened its first American showroom on Madison Avenue, thereby introducing New Yorkers to what the company calls “French Art de Vivre.” Notably, the phrase doesn’t quite translate. Rather, it suggests a way of living that treats daily existence as an aesthetic project.

The glass dining table from this collection represents the company’s “Les Contemporains” collection, which launched in the 1970s and featured sleek lines alongside stunning silhouettes. Meanwhile, the accompanying reclining chairs speak to Roche Bobois’ ongoing evolution, reflecting collaborations with designers from fashion houses like Jean Paul Gaultier, Missoni, and Kenzo Takada.

Currently, Roche Bobois operates more than 250 showrooms in 50 countries. Nevertheless, each piece maintains exclusively European manufacture, meaning the quality control that characterized the original partnership persists.

Cultural Signal: You’ve been to Paris—not just visited, but spent time. Therefore, you understand that elegance isn’t about acquiring things but about knowing which things matter.

RONALD SCHMITT Adjustable Glass Coffee Table

Original Retail: $1,900 | Available: $599

If you know the name Ronald Schmitt, you know furniture. Similarly, if you know the name Knut Hesterberg, you know design history. Based in Eberbach with over 150 craftspeople, this German company has operated under the motto “Design and Perfection” for decades, producing pieces that never go out of fashion because they never succumbed to fashion in the first place.

Hesterberg, the celebrated German sculptor who collaborated extensively with Ronald Schmitt in the 1960s and 70s, brought an artist’s sensibility to functional objects. For instance, his iconic “Propeller” and “Snake” coffee tables are collected at auction for thousands of dollars. Their biomorphic aluminum bases and thick glass tops represent Space Age optimism rendered in living room scale.

This adjustable glass coffee table continues the Ronald Schmitt tradition of engineering elegance. Specifically, the adjustment mechanism remains invisible when not in use yet allows the table to adapt to different entertaining scenarios, from cocktails to game nights. Furthermore, the company uses only the highest quality materials: natural stone, premium wood, and gorgeous glass that elongates and expands.

Cultural Signal: You appreciate German engineering in all its forms. Moreover, you understand that versatility isn’t compromise but rather intelligent design.

CB2 Woven Leather Chairs & Faux Embossed Dresser

Pair of Woven Chairs Original: $998 | Available: $400

Faux Embossed Dresser Original: $1,099 | Available: $450

CB2 launched in 2000, thirty-eight years after its parent company Crate & Barrel, with a specific mission: make high design accessible to people who couldn’t afford trade-only showrooms but refused to settle for mass-market mediocrity. Although the name stands for “Crate and Barrel 2,” the brand has since developed its own identity as the hipper, more urban sibling.

From the U.S. to Europe, CB2 merchants collaborate with more than 100 artists and designers worldwide to curate globally-inspired designs. Additionally, the brand’s recent Designer Collective brings together talents from around the world, including authentic vintage reissues from archives of design legends like Paul McCobb and Gianfranco Frattini.

The woven leather chairs represent CB2’s signature ability to capture a trend at precisely the right moment. Specifically, woven leather references everything from 1970s Italian design to Scandinavian modernism and has experienced a resurgence among designers seeking texture without pattern. Likewise, the faux embossed dresser demonstrates the brand’s understanding that sustainability and style need not conflict.

Cultural Signal: You’re confident enough to mix price points. After all, the sophisticated eye cares about what works, not what it cost.

The Supporting Cast

L-Shaped White Leather Sectional

Original: $3,500 | Available: $1,500

The white leather sectional occupies a complicated position in Hamptons design psychology. On one hand, it signals confidence—the willingness to live with something that shows every mark. On the other hand, it also signals care and the domestic infrastructure to maintain such a piece. Ultimately, in the right home, white leather becomes a meditation on how we choose to present ourselves to guests.

Leather Club Chairs with Ottoman

Original: $1,250 | Available: $800

The club chair traces its lineage to London gentlemen’s clubs of the 19th century, where leather-upholstered seating provided the backdrop for deals, debates, and dignified intoxication. However, this contemporary interpretation preserves the essential characteristics—deep seat, rolled arms, comfortable height—while updating proportions for modern living spaces.

Tan Leather 3-Seater Sofa

Original: $2,500 | Available: $1,250

Tan leather ages better than any other color, developing character that can’t be manufactured. Interior designers call this quality “lived-in luxury.” In other words, the piece suggests a home where people actually sit, read, argue, and reconcile—not a showroom, but a life.

Set of 8 Arm Chairs

Original: $2,800 | Available: $875

Eight matching arm chairs solve a perennial entertaining problem: how to seat a table without making guests feel like they’re in a conference room. First, the arms provide comfort for long dinners. Second, the matching set provides visual coherence. Finally, the quantity says: we’re serious about gathering.

The Art of Staging: Where These Pieces Find Their Purpose

D&J Concepts has spent over two decades understanding something that most furniture sellers never grasp: the right piece in the wrong context disappears, while the wrong piece in the right context becomes a conversation piece. However, when you place the right piece in the right context, that’s when magic happens.

David Hornung describes his signature approach as “modern transitional style that incorporates antiques and modern elements for an unexpected edge.” Consequently, this philosophy explains why the pieces above work together despite spanning different eras, countries, and design movements. Essentially, they share a commitment to quality materials and essential form over decorative excess.

Working alongside developers like Farrell Building, D&J Concepts created an innovative Stage-To-Sell technique, ultimately staging numerous 8-10 bedroom homes across the East End. Remarkably, one point of distinction is how many buyers immediately purchased every element of those staging features—literally every piece of furniture, down to the towels and cooking necessities.

That’s the power of professional curation. As a result, buyers see not just furniture but possibility. They envision their future selves hosting dinner parties, reading in corner chairs, and waking up in bedrooms that feel like they were designed specifically for them.

Connect With D&J Concepts

The pieces featured here represent a fraction of David Hornung’s carefully curated collection.

For private viewings, staging consultations, or inquiries about collaboration opportunities with D&J Concepts, reach David Hornung directly:

(631) 259-2239 | dandjconcepts.com

Showrooms in Southampton, NYC, South Florida, and Southern California

By appointment only. Inventory changes frequently.

Whether you’re staging a $15 million listing, furnishing a new acquisition, or simply upgrading a single room, the right designer pieces transform space into statement. For over 20 years, D&J Concepts has understood the difference.

D and J Concepts Furniture as Cultural Artifact

Quick Reference: All Pieces

Holly Hunt Leather Coffee Table | $1,950 (was $12,500) | Chicago design dynasty, ages like fine wine

CB2 Woven Leather Chairs (Pair) | $400 (was $998) | Designer collective, sustainable sophistication

Sergio Tacchini Leather Chaise | $950 (was $8,500) | Italian craftsmanship since 1967, adjustable

Ralph Lauren ‘Mouton’ Chairs (10) | $2,500 (was $10,000+) | Rare set, equestrian-inspired Americana

L-Shaped White Leather Sectional | $1,500 (was $3,500) | Statement piece, confident living

Roche Bobois Glass Dining Table | $1,750 (was $3,300) | French Art de Vivre, Les Contemporains collection

Leather Club Chairs with Ottoman (Pair) | $800 (was $1,250) | Gentlemen’s club heritage, updated proportions

Roche Bobois Reclining Chairs (6) | $1,500 (was $3,500) | Fashion-house collaborations, European manufacture

Tan Leather 3-Seater Sofa | $1,250 (was $2,500) | Ages beautifully, lived-in luxury

Set of 8 Arm Chairs | $875 (was $2,800) | Entertaining-ready, visual coherence

Ronald Schmitt Glass Coffee Table | $599 (was $1,900) | German engineering, Knut Hesterberg legacy

CB2 Faux Embossed Dresser | $450 (was $1,099) | Sustainable design, contemporary texture

Total Original Retail: $50,000+ | Available Combined: Under $14,000

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