Doorman’s signature “Amelia” Round Wooden Dining Table, pictured at Sherry Shirah Designs. Photo by Jacqueline Marque.
I F T H E W O O D C O U L D TA L K
Doors of the Past
CONTEMPORARY FURNITURE INSPIRED BY REINCARNATION IN THE CRESCENT CITY
F
rom the rooftop of Doorman’s furniture workshop on the Westbank, there’s a great view of Old Man River. After 2005, when those waters so infamously broke through the levees to fill and ravage this Crescent City, the building––like so many others––was abandoned. So many structures, built both in and by the spirit of this strange and wondrous city, were bent, crumbled, drowned. And then left behind as the people who had inhabited them started over on 30
By Jordan LaHaye higher, firmer ground. On one particular of the many shotgun homes so fated, a door survived and eventually made its way into the creative, if inexperienced, hands of a young Alex Geriner in 2008. The resilient old cypress door, salvaged from the ruin, received a new life as Geriner’s headboard. A friend of his was drawn to the combination of style and story and asked if he would make her one too. Subsequently, Geriner decided to try his luck with the then-newfangled marketplace of
A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M
Etsy.com. He salvaged more doors, built more beds, and within a week of posting them online, had shipped two to California. “The whole country at that point knew about Katrina and what had happened here,” said Geriner. “It was kind of this powerful, yet spiritual, thing where you’re taking a crisis and a lot of tragedy, and taking the pieces from that tragedy and giving them new life.” The Etsy shop eventually evolved into a larger endeavor, launching
officially as Doorman Designs in 2013 (and rebranding as simply “Doorman” in 2019). Today, with a team of eight full-time employees, the boutique operation functions as one of New Orleans’ only furniture companies where all of the pieces are designed and manufactured in-shop. Producing everything from beds to tables to credenzas in a uniquely contemporary interpretation of styles nevertheless quintessentially New Orleans, Doorman centers its identity around this city as its original source of
