Balleby Pipes (Kurt Balleby)

Balleby Pipes is the name of the one-man workshop Danish maker Kurt Balleby Hansen runs in Kolding. The maker signs his pipes not with his surname but with his mother Alice Balleby Hansen's maiden name, a choice that also determined the brand's name. Balleby began carving pipes in 1983, and over more than forty years has carved out a place for himself within the Danish School through pipes made in limited numbers but with meticulous care.

Apprenticeship and the Workshop's Founding

Kolding is a Danish town built along a river valley in South Jutland, and in the second half of the twentieth century it was home to more than one well-known pipemaker. Balleby has spent his life in this town and learned the craft here as well.

Balleby learned his craft under two well-known Danish makers working in the same city: Kai Nielsen and Preben Holm. These years let him grow accustomed both to the lathe and to Denmark's flowing sense of line. After six years, in 1989, he acquired his own equipment and set up an independent workshop in his home's basement. Production has continued in that single workshop ever since; the space is said to have been renovated later, but its location has never changed.