Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Ernsberger
Hi Sandra, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We are a husband and wife team, Sandra Ernsberger and Carson Leh.
When I met Carson, he was making custom leather bicycle seats in his living room. This was the origin of our first company, Leh Cycling Goods, which we still operate today. Our foray into interior design specific leather work and custom furniture came as interior designers and furniture brands found our cycling company and asked if we could translate our work into interiors.
The first step outside of the cycling world happened when Ochre, a high-end furniture brand, found us and asked if we could do white label production for their leather furniture lines. This was nearly 10 years ago now, and we continue to produce their Sable, Wisp and Caribou lines.
One of our first architectural leather projects came when a company found our leather bar tape from our cycling company and wanted to use it to wrap a stair railing. This particular project grew to encompass leather doors and a custom front door pull as well. We loved working on this project and it was an inflection point that lead to our decision embrace this direction of the business and establish Obsidian Leather Goods.
Carson comes from a long history of design and has always wanted to create furniture. His grandparents both worked at the Eames office in Venice, and it has long been a dream to follow in their design footsteps. Now we look to step into the next chapter of our business as we design our own line of furniture and case goods with an expected release of April 2025.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our greatest challenges can be summed up with two words- Time and Space. In our early years, we were so consumed by the volume and logistics of our large white label client, it took up all of our time. We learned a lot about production for high end clientele, how to manufacture to a consistently high quality standard and what those high end clients were really looking for in a piece. It was a great learning experience, but never left us with the time to dedicate to our style and our brand.
As we grew, the largest challenge quickly became space. Austin does not have a lot of creative manufacturing space available for rent or purchase and the space that is available is not cheap. As our business has grown, finding affordable manufacturing space has been a major challenge. Many sewing operations in Austin work in un-airconditioned space, which is something we just couldn’t fathom asking our employees to tolerate. We have now been in our current location for about 5 years.
After 10 years in business, we now have both the time and the space to embark on what we truly envision our brand to be. We will continue to offer custom work, as it has always been a staple of our business, but we also look forward to showcasing our vision and our own designs as we step into this next chapter.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We define ourselves as, “A Fine Leatherwork Studio in Austin, TX,” which encompasses quite a lot. We do architectural leather installations, such as leather handrails, leather doors and inset leather panels in a variety of mill-work applications, accent walls, leather wall tiles and leather writing pads and desk inserts. We also craft custom furniture, either starting with a design or working with a designer from the start to build things from the ground up. White-label manufacturing has also been a large part of our business, and we have a team of skilled employees who craft production pieces for our white label clients.
Beyond this, we have been working on our first line of fully in house furniture for release April 2025. This will showcase our signature style, which includes fully leather wrapped construction, brass detailing, and decorative high detail stitching. One of the things that truly sets us apart from other vendors is our attention to detail and our strive towards perfection. We make great efforts to ensure that every element of a piece is crafted to the highest quality standard, all doors sit even and flush, all stitching lines up perfectly with clean tension, hide selection is done with great care to manage placement of scars and imperfections. Our leather specification is also something that sets us apart. We are not exclusive with any particular leather distributor or manufacturer, which allows us to spec the exact right hide to any specific project. We’ll work with any vendor and we have a vast knowledge of what is available and how those leathers will function in any application.
We also pride ourselves in having an ethical work environment with a good wage, PTO, health insurance, dental and vision for our employees.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
On a more personal note, Carson and I are a husband and wife team. We have worked together for 10 years, and not only do we still love each other, we actually still like each other too. Over the years we’ve become better business partners and our working relationship has only improved. We’re in this for the long haul and we really love what we do.
In our personal lives, we are both nature lovers. We enjoy camping with our dogs, growing a vegetable garden and cycling together.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.obsidianleathergoods.com and our cycling brand is https://lehcycling.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/obsidian.leather/ and https://www.instagram.com/lehcycling/
Image Credits
All photos were taken by Carson Leh, Co-Owner and Designer of Obsidian Leather Goods
