BENJAMIN KLEBBA BIO

I grew up in the Great Lake state of Michigan in the woods across the street from Lake Huron. My dad built the house we grew up in, the furniture inside it, and sailboats we would take out on the lake. This left a lasting impression and, circularly, led me to furniture. After stints as a producer at an NPR radio station, building acoustic guitars, and working for a furniture studio in Chicago, I craved more creativity, and I kept thinking about the woodshop in our backyard while growing up and all the things that my dad made there. 

Eventually I moved west to Portland, Oregon to be closer to nature and put down roots in the Pacific Northwest. I worked in a cabinet shop and rented a space with some friends where I could pursue my own practice of designing and building furniture of my own. Right around this time the economy crashed and I lost my job, giving me the push I needed to start my own studio. PHLOEM was born with the intention of creating simple designs that could enrich people’s lives.

I get incredibly excited about the minutia of proportion and am driven by refining simple craft processes and formulating best practices for our small design studio. I find great inspiration in natural landscapes, my creative family and friends, music from all times and places, and unexpected shapes and patterns found all over, everywhere.

The creative trajectory of PHLOEM is now shared with my dad, Ron Klebba. We design each piece in our studio in the Columbia River Gorge. 

RON KLEBBA BIO

I grew up in rural Michigan eight miles west of Lake Huron, above the “Halfway Tavern”, a country tavern my parents operated that catered to the local farmers and factory workers. The farm across the road kept me generously supplied with odd boards of all shapes and sizes, nails, bolts and wood screws. As a sophomore in High School I was introduced to fine woodworking in a shop class and I decided I wanted to teach woodworking.

After graduating from college I taught woodworking, metal working, mechanical drawing, and building trades at a vocational school where we would build entire homes. Over the years my spouse Nadine and I have built several homes for our family. We loved the challenge of designing homes around the specific needs of our family at the given time, and always with easy access to the outdoors and Lake Huron.

My love for fine woodworking and craft started with the Foxfire Books, Fine Woodworking Magazine and the teachings of Michael Dunbar. I was intrigued enough by the sound of the dulcimer and the banjo to build them and sell them and then explore chair design and construction. On a trip to Novia Scotia in the 1990’s, as I admired a fully rigged, eighteen foot daysailer I thought to myself “we could build one of those!" Since then, I have built many wooden boats completely by hand, including a 16’ Herreshoff daysailer, a 28’ Herreshoff sailboat, and recently a 30’ trawler. I have never considered myself to be a boatbuilder but rather a woodworker that has built several wooden boats.

We have lived in Hood River, Oregon since 2011 and visit Michigan every summer to spend time on our boats on Lake Huron. At PHLOEM Studio I build prototypes, do working drawings and collaborate closely with Ben on design and fabrication. I love every minute of it! And so it goes.