DeJarnett Pipes

DeJarnett Pipes is the name of a small workshop based in Glendale, in the U.S. state of Arizona, just northwest of Phoenix. Horace Edgar DeJarnett, who shaped his pipes one at a time by hand, is among the craftsmen who took up the trade late in life; after a business career spanning more than forty years, he came to the bench and devoted roughly the last fifteen years of his life to carving briar.

The Maker's Path

According to his obituary, DeJarnett was born on August 19, 1935, in the town of Kerens, Texas. He spent nearly the whole of his working life in the food trade, turning the wholesale brokerage company he founded in 1984 into a business spanning several states, and stepping back from it in 1999 by selling his stake. His turn toward pipes dates earlier, to 1993, the year he quit smoking cigarettes. With retirement, this interest turned into a craft; he spent an apprenticeship period totaling roughly a year, spread over several stints, alongside Andrew Kovacs, a maker known in northern Arizona as "Jandrew." By his own account he also owes part of what he learned to advice given remotely by American maker Mark Tinsky. A serious health problem he experienced in 2001 did not change his routine at the bench, and production continued in the years that followed.