By Joyce Rosencrans
Forget about a separate table for children at holiday dinners.


Own this splendid 17-foot-long banquet table – introduced as part of Century Furniture’s Bordeaux Collection – and all Thanksgiving guests on Turkey Day will be sitting down together.

Can you imagine a table this lengthy in your dining room or great room? Talk about pressure on the cook to produce a fine meal, worthy of royal banquets in drafty, old castles.

Banquet tables have always been a focus of furniture fascination for us moderns who know more about bitty bistro tables-for-two.

Witness the jaw-dropping banquet table in a room with a stone fireplace opening higher than a man’s head at Biltmore in Asheville, N.C. This was America’s largest private home, now a house-museum where the dining room always fascinates visitors, especially at the holidays when all the greenery and baubles around the room, the dim lights and candles, evoke the lush Victorian repasts of George Vanderbilt and family.

The Vanderbilts would have thought a table for 16 rather modest, but they weren’t doing the serving, were they?

Century Furniture’s contemporary banquet table is intended to wow consumers “with expansive dining rooms.”

The Parisian Banquet Table from Century’s new French-inspired Bordeaux Collection was unveiled at the spring 2013 International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C. – not that far from where the Vanderbilts gathered in their banquet hall. This means that the table may be seen in a few retail showrooms by now.

This considerable table boasts a length of 204 inches (17 feet) and a width of 49 inches. That’s big enough to seat an astonishing 16 people comfortably -and up to 18 in a pinch.

Consider that the typical dining table seats six and measures just over 6 feet in length.

“We can make a custom table of nearly any length,” says Edward M. Tashjian, Century’s vice-president of marketing. “We can outfit even the largest dining room. The typical placesetting requires 22 inches, which allows for a full complement of china and silverware. With our Parisian Banquet Table, Century Furniture can add as many 44-inch sections as a customer wants. Each of these sections seats an additional four people. The width of 49 inches, which equals about 4 feet, is ideal for across-the-table conversation and only slightly wider than the typical 44-inch width of most dining tables.”

With the current surge in at-home entertaining, he adds, the timing was perfect for Century to take its dining tables to unprecedented proportions.

“Dining out is becoming passé,” Tashjian says. “We all do it three times a week or more. For a really special and memorable meal, there is nothing like entertaining at home. And, if you have a really spectacular house, there is no better way of showing it off than hosting a dinner for 16.”

The Parisian Banquet Table is a gracious setting for such events. Its top is enhanced with narrow strips of walnut inlay that come together in a pleasing geometric design. Carved cabriole legs and a gently scalloped apron form its base. It’s available in 11 distinctive finishes (or a combination of any two) inspired by the hues of the French countryside.

As pictured, the table is surrounded by 16 of the Bordeaux Collection’s richly carved Parisian Dining Chairs. Each piece has the Amaretto finish, a mottled almond with distressed, burnished carvings and edges.

If you’re worried that such a dramatic tableau might seem too formal for comfort, Century’s Tashjian says you can’t go wrong when you take your inspiration from France.

“The French know how to be dressy and comfy at the same time. These banquet tables come pre-distressed, like a well-loved antique. They are the epitome of good taste and casual elegance.”