Shoreditch

In 1997 we opened our current showrooms in a former lighting warehouse in Hackney Road. They are located less than one mile from Liverpool Street and Old Street Stations, and outside of the congestion zone. Our workshops and warehouse are one minute away, and we provide ample free customer parking in our yard. The showrooms were recently refurbished and extended by Mel Fawcett.

2008

We are now one of the few remaining furniture makers in the Shoreditch area, and we still follow the tradition of supplying products direct from local craftsmen to the customer.

Changing times

When our workshop moved to Shoreditch in the mid 1980s, it was still at the centre of a thriving furniture making district. Cabinet makers, upholsterers, wood turners, polishers, carvers, restorers and many more were busily plying their  trades from workshops in the surrounding streets. Their products were stacked up on the pavements in front of the shops and outlets that lined the Hackney Road.

Soaring rents, changing fashions and a reduced demand for the reproduction furniture that they produced has resulted in a fine 200 year old craft tradition virtually disappearing.

The area has recently regenerated, and is now one of the most vibrant in London. Many new shops, bars and eating places have opened in and around the nearby Hoxton, Columbia Road and Broadway Markets. Many of the former warehouses and workshops are now art studios, galleries and residential accommodation.  

Grays Inn

In 1982, this tiny building was too large for our needs, so a vegetarian café and salad bar was opened in the rear of the shop.

The café proved popular with the locals and it soon swallowed up the space. The bed showroom was relocated to Camden Lock.

It ran successfully as a cafe for 9 years before the building was finally returned to showroom use.

Eventually it had become too small to display our products, and we reluctantly closed it in 2005.

The early days

Litvinoff and Fawcett was started in 1979 by two carpenters, Julian Litvinoff and Mel Fawcett. They placed an advertisement

depicting an elephant on a wooden bed and offering ‘Jumbo 5 ft pine beds for £59'. Encouraged by the response, they rented a small workshop behind Mount Pleasant where they made and sold their beds. They approached a local mattress maker to supply them with mattresses to their specification.

The first shop

After three years they had fixed up a run down building in Grays Inn Road with a listed frontage. English Heritage were so impressed with their work that they listed the interior as well.

Camden Lock

By 1986 Julian opened another showroom directly opposite Camden Lock. Mel had moved on, having decided that he wanted to travel and devote more time to creative writing. It was during this period that we set up a production workshop to make mattresses. We also introduced the unique 'lifetime structural guarantee' on all the beds that we produce. The Camden shop traded successfully for 13 years, and was eventually closed because it too had become too small for our extended range.