Our Story

Design Workshops began as a small San Francisco cabinet shop in 1946.  It was founded by Hellmut Gerson and he was joined by Robert Bourdon shortly after opening.  The early years saw a focus on custom furniture for residential customers and notable work for local banks and department stores. In the late 1950’s, the company began to specialize in high-end commercial and tenant improvement work, which has remained the emphasis ever since. 

In the late 1990’s, Design Workshops’ leadership was transferred to Nick Gerson (Hellmut’s Nephew) and Rich Bourdon (Robert’s son).  They strongly emphasized modernizing Design Workshops so that it could perform sophisticated work with an even greater efficiency and higher level of precision than was possible before. An essential component of this modernization involved the replacement of the company’s older, manually-operated machines with state-of-the-art, computerized European woodworking equipment. This change has led to a decrease in production time, a significant increase in the fabrication precision, and, importantly, a reduction in the number of injuries sustained by those operating that equipment.

Another critical step in Design Workshops’ modernization was its move to a substantially larger facility in Oakland, California, in 1999. In addition to the increased physical space (over 45,600 sq. ft.) which allows for increased production capacity, Design Workshops also modified this new building in order to maximize it as a millwork production facility.   After completing a major seismic upgrade of the new building, Design Workshops custom designed the space to create as effective and efficient a working environment as possible by adding features such as a new down draft spray booth/finishing room, a paint storage room and a high-capacity dust collection system.

In 2001 Design Workshops further expanded its operations with the acquisition of sophisticated, precision veneering equipment. In addition, it hired a complete crew of highly-skilled, experienced individuals to operate that veneering equipment.

Around this same time Design Workshops hired Tad Beach and Yoel Asulin, both cabinet makers by trade, who came with extensive woodworking experience.  They soon took leadership roles alongside Nick and Rich, and are now the current owners with a focus on continuing the legacy of Design Workshops.

These substantial expansions and improvements over the decades have enabled Design Workshops to continue on its quest of producing an even higher-quality product for its customers and have placed it in the enviable position of having one of the most technologically advanced facilities in the region.