Custom pool table job is a hole in one

Howard Hatch’s CustomMade Success: $25,000 pool table and furniture set

Howard Hatch Scores a $25k Job through CustomMade.com

“Thank you CustomMade.com. I recently got a commission to make a custom pool table and 2 cocktail tables through the Custommade.com connection. This project totals more than $25,000 in work for me. A major project in these tough times. I especially like the fact that the client was able to get my contact information from Custommade and contact me directly with no middle man. This format works for me.”

How did Hatch Studio come to focus on making custom pool tables?

Howard Hatch of Hatch Studio making a custom billiard table

Despite years of play for fun and profit, master artisan Howard Hatch estimates his lifetime winnings at the pool table to be no more than $200. Billiards have yielded him a profit of a different sort—the discovery of a life’s work.

During his college years at The School for American Craftsmen at Rochester Institute of Technology, Howard was a dedicated student of furniture design—and Straight Pool. These passions intersected in 1996 when a client requested a custom billiards table. The project was a revelation. Almost without realizing it, Howard had studied the design, materials and technique of billiards tables for as long as he’d studied the game. As he surveyed that first finished table, Howard made a career-defining decision—to focus his design and craftsmanship on creating custom pool tables. And like many artists inspired to elaborate on one form, this pursuit has elevated the billiards table from the utilitarian to the extraordinary.

“I wonder why a man should prefer a good billiard-table to a poor one …” —Mark Twain

Howard’s workshop is located in Brunswick, Maine in a 19th century mill on the Androscoggin River. His goal as a designer and craftsman is to create furniture of lasting beauty and enduring function. He works both directly for clients and with the design trade.

Each project is different, but they all start with communication with the client or designer.