Chris-Craft Rectangular Serving Tray — Handmade Wood

A serving tray built the way a Chris-Craft hull was — mahogany strips laid side by side with light seams between them, varnished to a depth you can see into.

Details

• Handmade wood construction
• Strip-laid mahogany with contrasting seams
• Varnished finish
• Rectangular with raised edges
• Suits a table, bar, kitchen island, yacht or lake house

The look

Chris-Craft built runabouts in Michigan from 1874, and the decks of the classic boats are the reason they are still worth restoring: Honduras mahogany planking with white caulked seams, under many coats of varnish.

That finish was maintenance-heavy and impractical, which is exactly why fibreglass replaced it in the 1970s and why the wooden boats now sell for a great deal more than the plastic ones ever will.

The same pattern on a tray does what it did on a foredeck — it makes an ordinary flat surface worth looking at.