Written By WENDY HOBDAY HAUGH | Photos provided (unless noted)
[From the 2025 Home & Garden Magazine]
Jonathan Sweet stands atop mahogany ceiling coffers he designed and built for a client's Family Room.
Studio Sweet Turns Dreams Into Reality
Furniture artist Jonathan Sweet, of Studio Sweet in Johnstown, is known far and wide for designing and building his own unique line of contemporary Adirondack furniture. Impossible to confuse with rustic ADK pieces, Jonathan’s designs meld cosmopolitan nuances gleaned over years of working construction in New York City with natural elements of his hometown Adirondack region. The simple elegance of his work, at once graceful and subtly exotic, gets you thinking “Why not?” regarding the confluence of styles. It also gets you wondering about the artistic mind behind the work.
At Rhea Restaurant in Saratoga, Studio Sweet built the bar, walls, tables, and dividers for a local contractor.
“I see the world differently from most people, let’s put it that way,” Jonathan says. “I see possibilities in everything.”
“He’s always thinking,” his wife, interior designer Tara Sweet, adds. “He is able to build it in his mind and then execute. He sees possibilities every time he opens his eyes. His ability to conceptualize is the artist in Jonathan.”
When designing his distinctive furniture, Jonathan considers not only the shape and volume of a structure but the flow of air around it. “It’s very important to me that I design the air. Both the structure and the air around it are volumetric,” he explains, “so all the voids must be considered. In my mind, the air—or negative space—is more important than the structure. I spend a lot of time considering the dialogue between solid and void and how the proportion of one relates to the other.”
Located in a former glove factory in Johnstown, Studio Sweet is well-known for its diversity of services. In addition to Jonathan’s handcrafted furniture art, Tara brings experience working for NYC interior design firms. “I can produce plans and details of Jonathan’s designs, and then we build it. Together, with our team, we offer design/build or custom cabinetry and millwork for residential, commercial, hospitality, and retail clients. We’re really competent in all these areas. But not everything we do is custom,” she adds. “We also work with other designers to produce their visions. We love working with all types of clients!”
Listening to a client is key, Jonathan asserts. “In conversations, I’ll pick up something they say that’s of personal interest to them, maybe just a word, and come up with a whole design concept that is unique to them—something that speaks our language, as designers, but is unique and meaningful to them.”
The Sweets form an impressive team, Tara with her ability to lay out any space, from a single room to an entire house, and Jonathan with his expertise in every aspect of fine building. Since arriving in the area in 2001, the couple has rehabbed their Studio’s three-story factory, devoting one floor to workshop, one to office space, and one to Jonathan’s private gallery and office. They’ve also converted the top floor of another former sewing factory into their own stunningly gorgeous penthouse.
In this custom corporate wall, note Sweet's striking use of broken shale, copper awnings, barn board, and mahogany.
Great Room chandelier by Jonathan Sweet. Photo: Saratogaphotographer.com
“With all the unused factories and warehouses in the area,” Jonathan muses, “I’m surprised there isn’t more interest in doing loft conversions. During the 1990s, I did a lot of them in Manhattan. The creative possibilities are endless.”
The couple met in 1991 as architecture students at the New York Institute of Technology. “After graduating,” Tara says, “I enjoyed working on interior design projects for different firms, including one of the top ten design firms in the city. I love designing and laying out a space.”
In contrast, Jonathan opted to pursue the hands-on aspects of building. “I had no interest in sitting in an office getting a fluorescent tan. Fascinated by the nitty-gritty dirt of construction, I ended up working for a design/build architectural firm that was more of a construction-based company. Later, I had my own construction business in the city.”
Although raised in Fonda, Jonathan never expected to return to the area full-time. But things changed in 2001 when he was contacted regarding an office renovation project in Gloversville. “I really had no interest in coming back up here, but after our first meeting the client and I really clicked. He told me he didn’t like all the rustic twig stuff, but he wanted to do a kind of modern interpretation of the rustic style in a corporate setting. Sensing it was kismet and I was meant to do the job, I decided then and there: this project is mine, and we’re moving forward with it.”
After talking it over, the couple agreed on a trial run. They would stay upstate if they stayed busy. Ultimately, diversification enabled them to stay, and an unexpected request for a modern twist on a time-honored style led Jonathan to rethink his artistic career.
“The more time we spent up here, it seemed like everyone was moving toward this more natural element in furniture and decor,” he says. “But to survive, you have to be unique in this world because there’s always a glut of the same look. I knew my work had to be different, and I still contemplate today how to refine it—how to stand out.”
Ever imaginative, Jonathan Sweet is continually creating new and exciting work. His many Mod-ADK (modern Adirondack) chairs exemplify his vision of furniture as art, as do his canted tabletops and flowing paisley-shaped desks, designed to bridge corners.
“I love creating diagonals and inherent movement in pieces. I also love mixing materials–leather and brass tacking or different woods—because it creates a kind of light/shadow ambiguity, an unexpected mystery. A piece can look different at different times of day as the light varies. I choose a lot of exotic woods that look like they’re running. The grain of African kewazinga, for example, looks like water flowing and has an amazing hologram effect.”
A collector at heart, Jonathan is always on the lookout for unique barn wood, vintage materials, industrial castoffs, and natural objects. Once, while dismantling an old barn, he found himself watching several massive bulldozers stripping a nearby field. “When they hit a layer of shale and started plowing through it, the lighting was just right and the shale looked like water. Immediately, I thought, if only I could capture that look! I wound up taking truckloads of broken shale back home and playing with it. Since then, I’ve done full walls with it as wall laminations. I’ve used shale in my furniture as well.”
After spending time with Tara and Jonathan Sweet, it’s easy to see why Studio Sweet is thriving. Their personalities and skillsets complement one another, and their sky-high energy and enthusiasm clearly come of doing what they love.
“We work well together but we’re separate,” Tara says. “I’m not always involved in his projects, nor is he in mine. I’m better with the overall layout of a space, and he’ll come in and do all the detail work. We each have our strengths.”
“Macro, micro,” Jonathan adds with a smile.
To learn more, visit studio-sweet.com,
(518) 332-3467.