In a world dominated by mass production and computer-assisted design, Chris Zettel’s hands tell a different story. Steady and sure, they wield chisels inherited from generations past and transform raw wood into intricate masterpieces. “My relatives never left me money, but they left me the tools to make money,” he says with a laugh.
His workspace, equal parts curio cabinet and artist’s studio, nestles into a bedroom-sized corner of Naples’ Thomas Riley Artisans’ Guild. Long, thin pieces of lumber rest on equally long, thin work tables, waiting for the carver’s delicate touch to transform them into intricate moldings. Family photos and postcards pepper the spaces between handsome antique gouges and mallets hanging in dark wooden cabinets. Two model ships—venerable, if a bit battered—perch on shelves, and graphite sketches of past and future designs line the walls. Nearby, a bourbon-colored, cherry wood ‘book’ with a carved cover depicting an Art Deco-inspired lily pad and fish design lies close to its carver, a man whose twinkling eyes and wiry hair make you think of Father Christmas and Frank Zappa.
Photography by Jenn Goodell
chris zettel
Chris Zettel, who celebrates 25 years with the guild in 2025, specializes in carving, adding the finishing flourishes to fine wooden interior accents with simple tools and a honed touch.
The 71-year-old master carver—and incorrigible storyteller—distinguishes himself from the fields of cabinetry and carpentry. Throughout Thomas Riley’s 42,000-square-foot, four-building village, fellow specialized woodworkers mill lumber, book-match rare veneers, hand-finish surfaces, and test new materials and technologies—preserving and evolving their heritage. Meanwhile, Chris works on the architectural and decorative millwork, like a swath of modern scallops on a cabinet front or the scaly koi fish making up the base of a mahogany table.
Most of his work is structural—the steam-bent archways, the mangrove-like balusters, the flourished corbels. For his decorative work, doors, panels, and furnishings arrive at his station structurally ready but needing refinement. He chips away at the hard edges, transforming the surfaces into eloquent visual narratives with smooth cuts, intricate relief work and flowing patterns born from his artistic mind. Sometimes, it can take an hour to chisel and refine a few inches. “It’s the frosting on the cake,” he says. “But there are far more hours in carving than there will be in cabinetry.”
Photography by Jenn Goodell
chris zettel in studio
With every project, Chris begins by affixing a paper pattern—many of which he sketches himself—onto the wood’s flat surface and chisels around the template. Whether he’s wielding a chisel or a graphite pencil, his touch is fine, light and unerringly precise. At the 33-year-old guild, where well-heeled clients from across the country find an answer to their search for pinnacle woodwork, Chris’ craft is a one-of-one attraction.
These last few months have presented particularly titillating work for the carver. “I’m working on a once-in-a-lifetime job,” he says, beaming. Earlier this year, the guild took on a massive contract up the coast in Nokomis, Florida, where the client requested everything be hand-carved. “They wanted a large room that would look like a 1700s British men’s club—lots of fancy moldings, lots of fancy corbels and four mermaids,” he says. Together with his former apprentice, Sepeideh Azin, now a carver on contract with the guild, Chris is pouring every ounce of power into bringing his clients’—and his own—dreams to life.
Despite his venerated position at the guild, Chris doesn’t stand on ceremony: “I’m just all about making things—that’s my core.” His matter-of-fact perspective masks decades of expertise and mastery. He’s an enthusiastic admirer of French Gothic cathedrals, waxing poetic about aesthetics—their buttresses and vaulted ceilings—and the craftsmen and artisans who brought the structures to life with tools moved only by the power of the human body. “I grew up in Jamaica, where things were still very much done the old-fashioned way,” Chris says. “My formative days and my learnings were all hands-on, not too many power tools. There’s a feel to the hand-carved stuff that I just love.”
"I like the idea that I don't have to depend on having access to a machine. I can sit on the park bench and do what I do if I want to."
At the guild, where nearly every square inch of their clients’ coveted interiors and furnishings are handmade, those time-tested skills live on. “There aren’t many of us left who know how to do this kind of work,” he says.
The guild carefully balances traditional and technological techniques. While computer-powered milling and carving machines are a boon for getting Chris started on the yards and yards of trim required for luxe estates, their fuzzy, ill-defined cuts only emphasize the value of deft artisan hands. “The machine’s work looks good, but it doesn’t look real,” he says. Even if a machine slowed down enough to achieve the perfection expected by the guild’s discerning clientele, Chris’ hands—with decades of carving in their muscle memory—would complete the job long before the machines sputtered out their final yards of trim.
A third-generation craftsman—his family is filled with carpenters and tradespeople on both sides (alongside a rum runner or two)—Chris first tested his hand at woodworking with a Kingston-based boat repair and building company when he was 13. When his parents shipped him off to New York for college at 16, he broke up his time studying chemistry with a canoe-building side hustle in the university’s cellar. He worked as a chemist, but not for long. After moving to Naples with his wife in 1976, Chris promptly fell back into boat building, rendering full-sized mahogany runabouts and sailboats until clients began to prefer fiberglass over wooden vessels.
When Chris arrived at the guild in 2000, he began working under the company’s then-master carver, Jim Boot. “He was doing the really fancy, Baroque-style moldings, chubby cherubs, fancy corbels—all by hand,” he says. Enamored, he took on any job Jim would throw at him, soon realizing that, scaled-down, boatbuilding translated organically into the persnickety work required to sort out the minute imperfections in fine trims and moldings. His first big assignment involved three decorative carvings of open books made to top a series of lecterns commissioned by Collier County’s Champions of Learning nonprofit. The project, now some 25 years ago, inspired a pastime Chris maintains today. “I came up with this idea for the memory boxes, or ‘memory books,’ as I call them,” he says. “You get all these little odds over the years, like theater tickets, invitations to weddings, pictures—things that strike a chord within you. So, here’s a box specially made just to hold all kinds of fun memories.”
Photography by Jenn Goodell
Photography by Jenn Goodell
Photography by Jenn Goodell
Photography by Jenn Goodell
Like the sculptural cherry book in his workspace, each memory box is adorned with a motif inspired by the recipients. Many have initials on the cover or a special date, but others are more complex. “This one couple, their grandmother had knitted them a baby blanket that had this beautiful design, so I took the same design and put it on the front of the memory book,” Chris says. For a man whose craft centers on the functional, these small tokens of artistry are a treat and a labor of love.
Among his countless hand tools, Chris’ favorite is a set of chisels made by Takahashi Norikazu, a renowned Japanese blacksmith. “I’m handing my tools down to Sepeideh, to the next generation,” he says, smiling at one of her nearby carvings. “The traditions of artisans working go back thousands of years,” he adds. “I’m part of that tradition. And now, so is she.”