Furniture and architectural millwork for a hospitality interior by Westgrove
Leeward House is a boutique hotel in Thornbury, Ontario, designed with a strong sense of place, materiality, and hospitality. For Hamilton Holmes, the project brought together two connected parts of our practice: custom furniture and architectural millwork.
Working with interior designer Keri MacLellan of Westgrove, Hamilton Holmes produced a broad scope of custom pieces for the hotel, including beds, vanities, stools, banquettes, the reception desk, bar millwork, and a large conference table.
The result is a hospitality project where individual pieces do more than fill a room. They help define the experience of the hotel.
A project that required both furniture and millwork thinking
Hospitality interiors require a different level of coordination. A boutique hotel needs character, but it also needs pieces that perform. The spaces need to feel personal and memorable, while still standing up to constant use by guests, staff, and visitors.
For Leeward House, that meant thinking across multiple scales.
Some pieces had to function as furniture, with the intimacy, proportion, and detail of objects guests would touch and use every day. Others had to work architecturally, shaping the public spaces of the hotel through built-in millwork, counters, storage, service areas, and gathering points.
Hamilton Holmes was able to bring both skill sets into one coordinated scope.
“Leeward House really let us bring together both sides of what we do: furniture and millwork.”
... The goal was to help give the hotel personality, and to make pieces that could function beautifully in a working hospitality space.”
Nicholas Holmes
Founder, Owner, Principal Designer Hamilton Holmes
Supporting the designer’s vision
The work began with the design intent developed by Westgrove. Hamilton Holmes’ role was to help translate that vision into built form.
For interior designers, this is often where the most important problem solving happens.
A drawing, render, or concept image can establish the mood of a space, but the success of a custom piece depends on many practical decisions: proportion, material selection, joinery, edge details, finish, installation conditions, clearances, durability, and how the piece will be used over time.
In a hotel, those decisions become even more important. A reception desk is not only a visual anchor. It is also a working surface, a point of arrival, a storage solution, and a piece of daily infrastructure for the staff. A bar needs to create atmosphere, but it also has to operate. A vanity must feel considered, but it also has to withstand use. A bed or stool has to support the character of the room while performing as furniture.
Hamilton Holmes worked through those layers with the design team to help ensure the finished pieces served both the visual language of the hotel and the practical demands of hospitality use.
Collectible Furniture to Last Lifetimes
Leeward House was looking for personality. Not generic hotel furniture. Not anonymous millwork. The goal was to create pieces that helped the hotel feel specific, warm, and memorable.
That kind of personality is built through detail.
- The curve of a counter.
- The weight of a table.
- The rhythm of repeated pieces across guest rooms.
- The way a banquette changes the feeling of a public space.
- The transition between a custom vanity, a bed, a bar, and a reception desk.
When furniture and millwork are developed together, those details can speak the same language. The space becomes more cohesive because the individual parts are not treated as separate problems. They are part of one larger experience.
Solving problems for interior designers
Hamilton Holmes works with designers on projects where custom pieces need to be resolved carefully and built well.
That can mean fabricating a single statement piece, but it can also mean taking on a more complex scope where furniture and millwork need to work together across an entire interior.
For designers, this kind of collaboration can help solve several common challenges:
Turning a design concept into a buildable object.
Coordinating furniture and millwork so the details feel consistent.
Developing custom pieces that suit the scale and purpose of the room.
Balancing elevated design with durability and daily use.
Resolving construction details before fabrication begins.
Producing pieces that feel special without becoming impractical.
Supporting installation so the finished work lands properly on site.
Leeward House is a strong example of that process. The project asked for craft, coordination, and practical thinking across many different types of objects and built elements.
Shop Views
Kerri & Nicholas
A working hotel, now open
Leeward House is now open, which means the work has moved from shop drawings, material samples, fabrication, and installation into daily use.
Guests are arriving.
Staff are working in the spaces.
The furniture and millwork are becoming part of the hotel’s rhythm.
For Hamilton Holmes, that is one of the most rewarding parts of a project like this. The work is not made for a showroom. It is made to be lived with, touched, used, and remembered.
Project Credits
Interior Design: Keri MacLellan, Westgrove
Custom Furniture and Millwork: Hamilton Holmes
Project: Leeward House Hotel
Location: Thornbury, Ontario
Featured Product 20% Off A Pair
The Desert Chair would feel completely at home at Leeward House.
It shares the same relaxed hospitality language: warm wood, honest construction, a slightly nostalgic silhouette, and an easy sense of place. Around a dining table, in a guest room corner, or pulled into a lobby setting, it has the kind of character that suits spaces designed to be used, remembered, and talked about.
Designed and made by Hamilton Holmes, the Desert Chair is built in solid wood with a woven seat and a slender, architectural frame.
It brings together comfort, craft, and atmosphere in a piece that feels both familiar and distinctive.
For a limited time, receive 20% off when purchasing a pair of Desert Chairs.
Offer valid until July 13, 2026.
$1,950.00 CAD / $1,400.00 USD -20%*
20% off, min two chairs until July 13, 2026
Reimagining the traditional stick and ladder back, this chair is lightly balanced but strong and comfortable. The tapered legs and curved back yoke make an understated impression at any dining table. All the joinery is traditional mortise and tenon with no other fasteners.
Work with our design team to choose one of our in-house fabric options, or use the customer's own fabric.
Availability
Production Ready
6-8 weeks
Customization available
