For the past decade, Noel Tewes has gained a growing reputation as an architectural designer and fine furniture maker, working on projects all over the Northeast.

Now he just wants to stay home.

The Bangor man insists that his elegant, sculptural pieces, made out of woods such as maple and oak, should be useful as well.

“The pieces I build are museum quality, but they have to be functional at the same time,” said Tewes, 56. “I’d just as soon anything I build gets used.”

Many Mainers suffer sticker shock when browsing around a furniture store. Tewes’ sculptural, custom-built pieces are in a whole different league, ranging from $5,000 to $6,000 for a simpler primed piece to much higher for a more complex piece, depending on the materials and finish used.

As a result, most of his buyers have lived out of state, in New Jersey, Manhattan and Westchester County, N.Y., and the Berkshires in Massachusetts. But that’s starting to change. He recently installed a funky, asymmetrical entertainment center in a Bangor home, in what he hopes will be the first of many such sales in Maine.

“There’s an incredible building boom going on in Maine,” he explained. “Potential customers are more likely to live along the coast and to be more into sculptural, high-end, eclectic pieces. I’ll go sailing and check out the coast for construction, looking for potential customers.”

Through his company Dazzle, Tewes will build two to three pieces a year, one at a time. Depending on the size of the piece, he will work on it in his basement, outside his home or in a rented space. A few of these works are finished to show off the natural hardwood, while many, built of birch or poplar, are primed white by Tewes to be painted by other artists.

“The furniture I make, especially the built-ins, is unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before,” he said. “I took four years of art history, and I draw from everywhere, and carve that into the wood.”

While working on those pieces, Tewes also consults as an architectural designer.

“I go in and tweak designs,” he said. “Where there are problem areas, I try to come up with solutions. I try to make them more visually interesting.”

His approaches to his two different types of projects vary as well. Coming from a long line of architects and draftsmen, he creates his architectural designs in shop drawings at a drafting table (never on computer). He will then go back and forth with a client until the design is approved.

For his furniture pieces, Tewes does a quick sketch that he likes.

“Clients have to know me and trust me if all they’re ever going to see is sketches,” he said. “If they love it, I build it, as close to the sketch as possible. The lines will be less formal, less contrived. They have a certain freedom to them that I like to get into the piece itself. So, hopefully, the finished product looks like the sketch, full of motion, simple, probably more elegant.”

Tewes prefers designing furniture.

“I can go off and do it myself,” he said. “I just check in every once in a while, which is a great direction for me. I can design anything formal, but I’d rather do fun, playful types of work.”

Tewes has been involved in woodworking for 42 years. Born in upstate New York and raised in Pennsylvania, he helped put himself through Syracuse University by working as a handyman. After graduation, he married Susan Bradford, from an old Bangor family. They moved to Bangor in the mid-1980s, and for the next decade, Tewes made a living by doing general contracting work.

His big break came in the mid-’90s, when he designed a “happy, whimsical kitchen” for a woman restoring a townhouse in the Berkshires. She entertained frequently, and word of mouth helped Tewes’ workload to grow. His work has since been featured in, among others, Country Living, American Woodwork and Architectural Digest.

Now Tewes is seeking to make a name in his own state, as he has out of state.

“I’ve been turning down jobs [out of state],” he said. “I don’t want to travel out of state anymore.”

Noel Tewes can be reached at 942-8962. Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.