Along they way, they also help to support Nepalese craftspeople, whose indigenous carvings complement some of the furniture they make.

How these men got to Becket and meshed as a creative team is as much a part of the story as the custom furnishings they fashion. None of the four -- Ken Smith, Mark Grothman, Steve Petrie or Luke Bates -- started out to be cabinetmakers and each followed a rather circuitous path to this workshop in Western Massachusetts.

Smith went to college, he says, to "learn to read, write and think" and ended up with a degree in philosophy from Haverford, but an amorphous career trajectory.

He was caught up in the technology boom and landed a job at a computer graphics work-station company in Boston doing product support. He left in the early 1990s after a "hostile takeover."

Seeing this as an opportunity to totally change direction, he moved to the Berkshires, "somewhat impulsively purchasing land in Becket." He began working as a residential carpenter to hone his skills and eventually began making furniture in the basement of his home.

In 1995, he opened Cullen Grace Joinery (the name incorporates the middle names of both of his children) with one part-time employee.

Although he is still the proprietor, he says "the business is run more as a cooperative venture than a traditional shop with a hierarchical structure."

Steve Petrie has been Smith's longest colleague, joining him several years ago after working in the Albany area and the Berkshires.

Petrie has a finance degree from the University of Buffalo, but found working with his hands is his true passion. At one point, he even had his own shop.

Last winter, he left Cullen Grace to pursue a lifelong dream of biking around Europe. After that, he toured the U.S. on his motorcycle. Missing the Berkshires, he returned to the area and rejoined Cullen Grace .

Petrie says he's happy to once again be working in such a synergistic environment, one that allows the innate talent of each individual to be realized in the joint act of creation.

While Petrie was traveling, Grothman joined Smith, bringing with him both expertise and his own roster of clients.

Grothman, who had been a member of the Corps de Ballet of the American Ballet Theater until he retired at age 30, started doing cabinetry in New York City during the ballet's long summer hiatus and knew it would be his full-time vocation when he quit the stage.

Although he loved dancing, he said, he "wanted to create something less ephemeral than a performance, something with lasting value."

He's been working as a cabinetmaker for more than 12 years, the last six full time.

Bates, the newest and youngest member of the group and a graduate of Wahconah Regional High School, answered an advertisement in The Berkshire Eagle, and was invited to join the team because, as he explains, Smith appreciated his woodworking talent and artistic sensibilities

Each contributes to the success of this ensemble that, not so improbably considering Smith's philosophical underpinnings and Grothman's ballet background, appears to function as a highly evolved, choreographed unit with a rare synchronicity of style.

Considering the quality of the work they produce, it is amazing that they are all self-taught.

They collaborate with architects and interior designers and, as Smith says, "use their expertise to bring the vision alive."

One project, completed last month, was for 65 linear feet of 9-foot-high built-in bookcases for a loft apartment in New York.

Custom cabinetry is a large part of the business, but they also make desks, dining tables, armoires and other freestanding pieces.

Smith says their client base is "extensive and fluid." Most of their work is by referral. Last year, 90 percent of their business was generated through Berkshire contacts.

Smith said when he first started, he worked with Karen Cedar at Paul Rich Interiors in Pittsfield. Cedar introduced him to Beverly Hertzig, a decorator in Williamstown, who is now one of Smith's best clients. Hertzig has generated commissions for many fine furniture pieces including a rare thuya burl desk for a Williams alumnus and Fortune 500 investment banker.

The banker, in turn, commissioned a piece incorporating petrified wood for a well-known celebrity who'd particularly admired a similar one the banker owned.

Another decorator with whom they have collaborated on many projects is Bill Caligari of William Caligari Interiors/Architecture in Great Barrington. At one point, Smith said 65 percent of his annual gross sales involved work generated by Caligari.

Recently, Cullen Grace Joinery shipped five large office pieces overseas for a family who had also commissioned dozens of furnishings for a 1911 "cottage" in Stockbridge they were restoring.

Though crafting furniture for an international clientele brings a certain cachet to the business, concerns about the climatic conditions in their eventual locale adds to the stress of creating these massive pieces. The logistics involved in shipping such expensive and heavy items abroad present another set of challenges.

The works that emerge from Cullen Grace Joinery are not reproductions. They are unique creations that would be at home with valued antiques and historical architecture.

A recent renovation has added 2,000 square feet of working space, partially occupied by a huge machine capable of incredibly fine sanding and finishing work.

While proud of their precision tools and their skill, the cabinet makers are quick to share credit for the beauty of some of their furniture with a group of woodworkers from Kathmandu who craft everything by hand.

Several years ago, while hiking in Nepal, Smith visited a woodworking cooperative organized by an American woman, Lee Birch, to help local craftspeople find markets. He arranged to have them carve decorative trims and panels for some of the furniture made in Becket.

Putting it all together involves a combination of technology and individual skill. Smith sends the designs over the Internet to Kathmandu. There they are turned into detailed, shaded sketches. Revisions are made and specific patterns created.

The carving, itself, is all done without the use of power tools, as the Nepalese workers adhere to centuries-old carving techniques. They air freight the finished pieces back to Becket where they are integrated into the desk, table or cabinet for which they were designed. The quality of the work, said Smith, is "amazingly precise."

On his travels in Italy, Petrie learned that those with special creative abilities are said to have "hands of gold." Though the cabinet makers of Cullen Grace Joinery might be more inclined to describe their counterparts in Kathmandu in this manner, they are using their own "hands of gold" to create functional and decorative works of lasting beauty.