top of page

A Fascinating Story

Sam, Alfreda, and Their Home

Sam was one of the greatest woodworkers of the 20th Century. His unique talent was recognized when he was the first craft person to receive the MacArthur Fellowship (the MacArthur Genius grant). His furniture is immediately recognizable for its flowing, organic shapes and stunning aesthetic. But you cannot discuss his work without also including his wife, Alfreda. She convinced him to not give up on multiple occasions and kept him centered. She managed the business and made a huge contribution by building and maintaining relationships with customers and prospects. Sam has repeatedly said that without Alfreda, he never would have succeeded. So let’s get to know the Maloofs.

 

Sam's parents emigrated from Lebanon, then part of Syria, shortly before WWI. Sam was their sixth child and the first, long awaited, boy. He grew up in Chino, CA, not far from the current location. He was early recognized for his artistic talents in school and produced many of the hand lettered signs for Chino stores while still in high school. 

 

After graduating high school, Sam worked doing mechanical drawings and art at Vortox, then went to work for Harold Graham, an industrial designer known for his automated Christmas and Easter window displays for the downtown Bullocks department store. Sam learned basic woodworking at Graham's shop, making art deco furniture for Graham's home and mastering all the standard joinery forms, including the triple miter joint for cabinetry. 

 

Graham converted to defense work when WWII broke out and wanted Sam to stay on with a deferment, but as a son of immigrants, he felt compelled to enlist in the army. Surprisingly, he never saw combat. He was stationed in the Aleutian Islands, documenting Japanese gun emplacements and assuring that the Japanese didn't return.

Alfreda Ward graduated from UCLA in art and found no jobs during the Great Depression, she went to work in the Indian Service from 1935 to 1943, first teaching third grade and living in the pueblo, then sent to learn indigenous crafts, living with Maria and Julian Martinez who made the traditional black San Ildefonso pottery. This prepared her to be director of the arts program at the Indian boarding school in Santa Fe. The teachers were native artists and artisans. Later she was transferred to a similar role in Montana. Her time in the Indian Service led to life-long friends on the San Ildefonso and Santo Domingo Pueblos. She and Sam continued to exchange visits with them for the rest of their lives. 

 

During WWII Alfreda enlisted in the WACs and served until her father became seriously ill. After the war, she bought a house on the GI bill for herself and her widowed mother.

Cord chair by Sam Maloof

Sam went to work for Millard Sheets after the war. Millard was head of the art department at Scripps College and designer of the distinctive Home Savings and Loan buildings with their original art. Running an errand for Millard, he met Alfreda at Scripps. They were married in 1949 and he moved into her home. Lacking money and furniture, he began making a few simple pieces for their home, using Freda's father's hand tools. They show influences from the Danish Modern style of the time, as in the cord chair you will see in the master bedroom. There's no hint of the aesthetic that will later become unmistakably Maloof, but the craftsmanship and sense of style in the chair explains why Sam's work became so admired.

Friends began asking for similar pieces. It might have ended there, but for two lucky accidents. Millard Sheet's wife convinced Better Homes & Gardens (one of the most widely read magazines in America) to do a piece on his furniture in 1951. That attracted Henry Dreyfus, the best-known industrial designer of the time. Henry asked Sam to make a dining set. Sam asked Henry for his plans but Henry said no, he wanted Sam to design and make the set. Sam could not have received a greater honor. The nation's leading industrial designer asked Sam to design for the designer's own home. These two events, plus articles in the Los Angeles Times Style magazine, and his furniture shown in the interior design exhibits organized by Millard Sheets at the Los Angeles County Fair, all helped to make Sam visible to a larger audience.

Chair by Sam Maloof

With strong support from Freda, Sam quit his job with Millard and devoted himself full-time to making furniture. He was successful at getting commissions but struggled to make a comfortable living. He would have given up many times but Freda wouldn't back down for an instant. This was what he was meant to do. Alfreda kept the books, helped with clients, and maintained ongoing friendships will all their customers. The Maloof archives have Christmas cards and notes from clients that Freda saved, going back to the 1950s.

Sam wasn't happy in the suburbs. He yearned for a more peaceful rural environment. So, in 1953 they moved to a lemon grove with a bedraggled caretaker cottage. From there, it gradually grew. First a slab for working, with the tools stored in an old chicken coop at night. Then a workshop was built on the slab. Next, an 800 square foot shoebox of a house, the first room you'll see on the virtual tour. One living/dining/kitchen room, a bathroom, and a room for the two children with a divider down the middle. Then as money was available or there was a need, additions would be made. Later, Sam found aesthetic expression in adding distinctive design elements to the home, including the arches, the monitors with clerestory windows, the singing floor, and the spiral staircase.

In 1959 Sam was invited to participate in a State Dept. program to work with craft persons in unaligned countries to develop products that would sell successfully on the world stage. Sam immediately embraced the idea and traveled to Iran (by himself) and back to his parent's homeland in Lebanon (with 'Freda, Sammy, and Marilou). This six-month worthy project created a huge backlog when Sam got home. Which led him to accept that he needed full-time help. Now he could indulge his sculptural tendencies further, knowing that assistants would take care of the time-consuming hand rasping, sanding, and finishing. The first full-time assistant was Larry White, now retired from Maloof Woodworking and the Artist in Residence and First-person History resource for the Maloof Foundation.

In 1985 Sam won the MacArthur “Genius” grant. It was a sizable sum, and he was the first craftsperson or artist to receive that award. This increased his status enough that he was finally able to make a comfortable living.

 

Sam and Alfreda were active participants in the vibrant community of Pomona Valley artists at the time. The Maloof home was often host to potlucks and other parties for this group of artists and craft persons.

The house never stopped growing, from 1953 up to the move in 2000. The first addition was a carport, soon enclosed for Sam and Alfreda's bedroom. Then a sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom for Freda's Swedish born mother, known always as Mor mor, Swedish for maternal grandmother. Next a master bedroom and bath for Sam and Alfreda. More rooms followed, and changes to existing rooms until a simple stucco tract-style house became a unique and wonderful expression of one artist's vision.

Maloof Foundation

The 210-freeway construction threatened the house, which had received certification in the National Register of Historic Places as the home of a notable artist/craft person. A Foundation was formed so the State could legally pay for the relocation and the current site was found, prepared, and graded, and the home and shop moved. The house is now open to the public and is the property of the Foundation. An in-kind home was built below for Sam to live in. After Alfreda passed away, Sam married Beverly Wingate. In 2009 Sam died at age 93, after a burst of creative energy, designing three new pieces to add to the Maloof aesthetic. The new home belongs to the Foundation and will be repurposed when Beverly leaves the property.

bottom of page