The story of American billiard table manufacturing, as told by Kurt Schmidt, is a sobering one. Schmidt, the fifth-generation owner of the A.E. Schmidt Billiard Co. in St. Louis, declares that no more than 15 years ago, as many as 150 companies and craftsmen were dedicated to the art of building high-quality tables; but today, only a handful remain. Founded in 1850, A.E. Schmidt is the oldest family-owned billiard table manufacturer in the country, but Schmidt says that such longevity has not made the company exempt from design challenges. "Our original stuff was getting a retro look to it," he explains, "so we’re adding [new] designs that take what we’ve done for years and years and we’re bringing [those styles] into the present.

As a purveyor of handcrafted, artful billiard tables, Schmidt acknowledges that it wasn’t for a lack of solid designs and styles that many companies went out of business. As a way of preserving those styles, Schmidt went to the archives, surveyed the ones that proved to be the most eye-catching, and went about incorporating elements of those styles into the new tables that the company produced. "All these companies had good designs, so we borrowed some of that and brought in our own elements and created new models that encapsulate the best of both worlds," he says. "We’ve taken a lot of their styles and breathed new life into them."

That new line of tables is what Schmidt has branded the Prestige Collection, and at the pinnacle of that group is Le Fleur (shown here in the final stages of production), which costs about $15,000 and stands out for the extent of decorative carving that accents the sides and legs. "We’re getting more and more calls for this type of table," Schmidt says. "It has a modern look to it, but it keeps some of the antique flair. It looks like an old table that fits into the 2011 time frame."

Available in a variety of woods, the table can take as long as two and a half months to create, depending on the levels of customization that the customer wants to include. As an example, Schmidt points to the fleur-de-lis carvings that accent each leg, which he says can be changed to elephant heads, lion heads, or virtually any other design that a customer might want. "They want it [to be] theirs," he says, explaining that above all, his customers want to know they have a table that’s unique. "They don’t really want to design something, but they still want to do something to the table that makes it special."

Schmidt says that some of the company’s new designs materialize out of conversations that they have with both new and returning customers. "Your customers provide you with more ideas than you would ever think," he says. "Somebody just has to say, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’"

A.E. Schmidt Billiard Co., www.aeschmidtbilliards.com