Paul McCobb: The Designer Who Made Mid-Century Modern Feel Like Home
If Milo Baughman was the flashy chrome prince of MCM, Paul McCobb was the quiet poet of affordable elegance. From 1945 to the late 1960s, McCobb designed over 1,000 pieces that looked expensive, cost a fraction of Knoll prices, and somehow ended up in half the suburban living rooms of the Eisenhower era. His influence is still everywhere—every tapered brass leg, every clean-lined credenza, every “inspired by McCobb” shelf on Wayfair owes him rent.
The McCobb Recipe
Thin, honest lines – no ornament for ornament’s sake.
Mixed materials – walnut + travertine, brass + leather, cane + iron.
Modular thinking – pieces that stacked, nested, or reconfigured for tiny postwar apartments.
Democratic pricing – a Planner Group coffee table retailed for $29.95 in 1952 (about $360 today). Compare that to a $1,200 Eames plywood table.
The Breakthrough Lines
Planner Group (Winchendon Furniture, 1950–1964) The IKEA of the 1950s, but in solid maple. Interchangeable bases, drop-leaf desks, and those iconic cone-shaped pulls. A full bedroom set cost less than one month’s salary for a junior accountant.
Directional (1950–1960) The upscale cousin. Brass stretchers, vitrine cabinets with sliding glass doors, and the “Irwin Collection” natty gentlemen’s chests that looked like they belonged on Madison Avenue.
Calvin Group (1957) Higher-end still—rosewood, cane doors, travertine tops. The “Linear Group” sofa with its spindly brass legs is the one you keep seeing in Dwell.
Perimeter Group (Lane, 1966) Late-career banger: bold walnut cases, recessed plinth bases, and brass sabots. Basically Brasilia-lite but classier.
Why He Mattered
He beat the Scandinavians at their own game – clean, functional, warm. Denmark called it “Danish Modern”; America called it “McCobb.”
He designed for real rooms – 8-foot credenzas that actually fit through doors, chairs you could pull up to a dinner table without looking like a museum piece.
He vanished, then returned – died young in 1969, forgotten by the 1980s, rediscovered in the early 2000s when every Brooklyn couple needed a $900 Facebook Marketplace “McCobb-style” dresser.
The Revival
Cardi B owns a full Perimeter dining set. Reissues by Kardiel and Industry West sell his brass-handle dressers for $2,000–$4,000. Original Planner Group pieces still pop up for $200–$800 if you’re quick. The holy grail: a signed Directional double-sided room divider credenza—$15,000+ when it surfaces.
One Sentence Legacy
Paul McCobb proved that mid-century modern didn’t have to be precious or expensive; it just had to be honest, useful, and quietly beautiful.