A man with touch of glass
Simon Pearce’s fine craftwork hits Newbury St.
(Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)
Simon Pearce signs one of his glass works at the opening of the Newbury Street store.
QUECHEE, Vt. — In an old woolen mill on the Ottauquechee River, where Simon Pearce moved his glassblowing operation from Ireland nearly 30 years ago, Pearce moves almost unnoticed among the small crowds who have come to shop, watch glassblowers at work, and have lunch at the restaurant. Though he helms a $30 million-a-year company whose products have been gifts for presidents and heads of state, Pearce — in Levi’s, Merrells, and a gray sweater — looks unremarkable.
The company’s glass and ceramics have gotten the most attention, but its line goes far beyond that. A greatly expanded Boston store, which opened this month, shows off a wide range of wooden bowls and serving pieces, rustic table linens, even tables and chairs.
Pearce, 64, says the larger space at 103 Newbury St. better shows what the company can do. Still, expanding in a still-sluggish economy worried him.
“We had a lot of reservations,’’ he said. “Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet. We felt if we had a bigger store and could show more, it could really work.’’
In the Boston store, one of nine Pearce retail locations, a sturdy oak table lovingly set with wooden and white plates, festive napkins, and simple stemware makes an idyllic setting for a family’s holiday meal. Cork bowls from Portugal and wooden pieces from Ireland (Pearce also sells work from other designers) share shelf space with candleholders, hurricane lamps, and dinnerware. Striking decorative pieces from company artisans, displayed gallery-style, show off a different side of a company that has emphasized practicality during much of its nearly 40-year history.
In spite of these adjustments, Pearce has not tinkered much with his core formula. A believer in simplicity, he’s interested most in making “beautiful, useful things,’’ just as he was when he started his glassblowing workshop in Kilkenny.
Growing up in rural Ireland, Pearce always knew he wanted to work with his hands. He became interested in ceramics through his father, who was a potter. Pearce struggled in school (he later discovered he’s dyslexic) and dropped out at 15. Shortly after, he headed to New Zealand, where he apprenticed with Harry Davis, a well-known English potter. After returning to Ireland, he worked with his father for a year, though his fascination with glass had already taken hold.
“My godfather [the Irish artist Patrick Scott] has a wonderful collection of old glass, mostly Georgian rummers, which he collected over the years,’’ Pearce says. “There was something about that collection that I thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone making glass like this anymore, with character and individuality?’ There was nowhere I knew of you could buy glass like this.’’
Pearce spent the next few years traveling around Europe learning the glass trade, sometimes talking his way in through the back door of factories and offering to sweep floors. There were no glass studios at the time, and most of the factories were very secretive. He credits lucky breaks, including a stint at the Royal College of Art in London, which let him study without a degree, and a training program at Orrefors in Sweden with giving him the skills he needed to set up his own operation in 1971.
Yet Ireland’s business environment and bureaucracy at that time were stifling, and after a decade, Pearce decided to move. He ended up in tiny Quechee through a strange stroke of fortune: After telling friends of his wife’s family of his plans, they arranged a lunch meeting with Laurance Rockefeller, grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who was living in Woodstock, Vt., just a few miles from Quechee. Rockefeller introduced Pearce to the real estate agent who showed him the mill. The site had everything Pearce was looking for, namely, a means of producing his own electricity to run the glass furnaces (through the river) and, of course, natural beauty.
“I saw this place and I nearly died,’’ Pearce recalls.
Pearce fixed up the mill, built the glass furnaces, and installed a turbine that he bought secondhand to harness the river for electricity. (The company began producing ceramics at the site shortly after.) Pearce’s wife, Pia, has always been active in the business.
As befitting a man whose craft relies on patience and precision, Pearce has grown his company slowly. Today, he has four manufacturing facilities, all in the United States, and has about 300 employees.
The company does the most business in the Northeast. “He’s become so rooted in the New England aesthetic,’’ says Newell Turner, editor in chief of House Beautiful. “To me, he comes out of those Shaker and Amish traditions of simplicity of line.’’
The Pearces have four sons, ages 23 to 29. The oldest, Andrew, works in management for the company; Kevin, the youngest, is a professional snowboarder who was seriously injured before the Vancouver Olympics. (He is still recovering but doing “remarkably well,’’ Simon says.) The family has always been very close, eating together every night and usually preparing the meals together. For some, that sense of family is intertwined with the company’s appeal.
“They’re a beautiful family, that’s part of it,’’ says Margie Huggard, owner of Margo’s of Osterville, an interior design and home furnishings store. “It’s the whole experience with the pieces, you feel like you’re part of [the family]. And the pieces are things you can keep and pass on, which is something that’s dying off into the past.’’
Ami Albernaz can be reached at ami.albernaz@gmail.com. 
