Maine's Best-Kept Design Secret
Elms: Beautiful handcut jigsaw puzzles from Vacationland.
Today’s post is brought to you by Elms Puzzles. Read on to the end to enter a giveaway to win a ~free~ Elms puzzle!
Over the past few years, Maine has become such a staple of the east coast millennial summer, you’d think the state’s tourism board launched a wildly successful social campaign. From June to early September, my feed is filled with perky boiled lobsters, tasteful (but not ostentatious) grey shingled homes, and harbor upon harbor. Oh, the harbors!
In the interest of full disclosure, my parents do “summer” in Maine, in a rather rudimentary lakeside cabin they bought some 20 years ago. So yes, I’ve been to the state a lot, and I too am under the spell of Maine’s magic.
Despite the frustration of feeling like every cheffy influencer has outed all of Maine’s best-kept secrets — the little pottery shacks on the side of the road, the handpainted dishware in Blue Hill, the antique treasure trove known as the Chicken Barn — one remains. Meet Elms Puzzles, a handcut wooden jigsaw puzzle company founded in 1987. The name comes from the initials of the founder (Elizabeth Lee McShane Stuart), who ran the company out of her log cabin for 20 years (adorable).
It’s since been taken over by Chris Danner, who grew up doing Elms puzzles. (FYI, there is a small but mighty faction of avid Elms fans, which includes the likes of Hillary Clinton and, um, Oprah.)
As a “puzzler” myself (proof here), I was charmed by this independent, Maine-rooted company. The experience of doing an Elms puzzle is truly different than your off-the-shelf big box product — they sent me a 200-piece puzzle, which should be child’s play to an experience puzzler. This thing took me HOURS.
What I love love love about Elms:
Each puzzle is completely unique as the pieces are handcut by a member of the Elms team.
The pieces can be wildly inventive. (Just wait until we start talking about “whimsy” pieces.)
Elms can create custom puzzles! (I am truly hoping someone who is planning to propose over the holidays contacts them and ends up creating some sort of engagement puzzle.)
Caveat: They are pricey. But worth it as a truly memorable gift. Otherwise, there’s a very cool and affordable rental program.
Schmatta: Chris, what is your background? How did you come to own a puzzle company?
Chris: My connection with Elms goes back to my childhood. Elms has always had a rental program, and my parents were instantly hooked on that idea — that you could rent out a puzzle and take it on vacation. We had Elms puzzles around all the time.
But professionally, I have no background in puzzle-making or anything like that. In my early twenties, I had a tech startup — it was a men’s fashion thing — that went bust. But it brought me into product management and software development. Ultimately, I wanted to get into the intersection of tech and social impact so I took a role as director of product of charity: water, which is the largest nonprofit dedicated to solving the global water crisis. We deploy somewhere between $60 and $80 million every year to bring clean and safe drinking water to some of the poorest and most remote communities in the world.
Schmatta: Okay, so you’re getting into heaven. But so you have this day job…how did taking over Elms come about?
My dad and I have always loved talking about companies and business models, and more often than not, those conversations happened over an Elms puzzle. We reached out to the Elms owner at the time, who was the founder’s widower, and said, “Hey, if you’re ever thinking of retiring, please give me a call.” That didn’t happen, and the company changed hands a few times, but we always kept in touch, and eventually, the opportunity presented itself.
Schmatta: Right place, right time?
Kind of. But funnily enough, in the first year of running Elms, I probably talked to three other customers who, similarly, had dreams of running Elms. There’s this lovely couple in Illinois, who, for years, wanted to retire to Maine and run Elms.
Schmatta: So what has given Elms its cult status?
When everything else in our world has gone mass produced or digital, the things that have stayed true to their artisanal roots can really take a hold on folks. And in the case of puzzles, it’s one of those things where the handcrafted version is just a better experience. Also, there are only two companies left making puzzles the way we do. There’s a lot of nostalgia.
Schmatta: Tell me about these “whimsy” pieces.
Whimsy pieces are pieces that resemble objects or animals. There’s a long tradition of our artisans including their own whimsy that represents themselves within each puzzle. The whimsies can be quite clever, too: If you’re doing a puzzle of a beautiful Italian landscape, you might as well have a piece in the shape of a wine glass; or a sailboat if it’s a harbor.
Schmatta: So is the cutting all freehand?
With the exception of the whimsy pieces, it is 100% freehand. Otherwise, there’s no template or guide. The cutter literally sits down and just manipulates the board around a scroll saw to freehand craft every single piece.
Schmatta: Tell me about the range of artwork you have for the puzzles. You have categories like “folk art” which feels like traditional puzzle illustration; there’s also “cats” and “plant moms.”
One category of our art is just stuff that that has always resonated with our customer base. And I know Schmatta is a design newsletter, so these pictures might not be the pinnacle of taste —
Schmatta: Let me stop you right there. I’ve always thought that the ugliest puzzles are the best puzzles! Which category do you gravitate to?
I was an art history major, so the fine art category is my go-to. Museums can sometimes be an intimidating and frustrating way to view art. For me, a puzzle allows you to spend hours with the artwork and really understand how the artist pieced together each brushstroke.
But we do have a lot of plans to bring in fresh takes on art, and to make our artwork more diverse.
Schmatta: Okay, last question. I have to know if there are any good stories of people requesting custom puzzles.
We LOVE getting custom puzzle requests because we really are down to work with you on anything. But one of my favorites is a woman who commissioned a giant puzzle to commemorate her debut novel. So we did a puzzle of the book’s cover but incorporated all these whimsy pieces that spoke to the characters and the plot.
See Elms’ full collection at elmspuzzles.com. Be sure to check out the newly launched holiday shop as well!
ELMS GIVEAWAY
Schmatta readers! Would you like your very own Elms puzzle? For free? I picked out this 200-piece beauty titled “The Bookshop at Christmas”. Is it the most designy puzzle out there? Nope. But during cozy season, this is EXACTLY what I want in a puzzle.
To win:
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Heart this post AND leave a comment.
I’ll pick a random winner on November 14th. Best of luck to you and happy puzzling!
I got back into puzzles a couple of years ago and it's been an unexpected delight for me, as a 31 year old city-living woman - perhaps not the most obvious audience?
One glimmer: The other week, a friend, whose cat had passed unexpectedly, asked if she could come over to just sit together and puzzle. She brought wine and the puzzle itself, I cooked us dinner, and we puzzled and laughed and missed her cat in communion. There is something magic about working on something like that side by side, but it's also deeply centering to do it alone. Safe to say - I would love to win this one!
Puzzles are truly the thing that help quiet my mind. These look like artwork. So beautiful!