Four Weeks With the Hadleigh
An English roll-arm sofa, lived with through the dim end of February. Notes on cushion settling, the indignity of pet hair, and the small consolation of a properly tied skirt.
There is a particular quality of light, late on a February afternoon, that asks a piece of furniture to declare itself. The sun is low, the room is undecided, and a sofa either gathers the moment or stands apart from it. The Hadleigh, an English roll-arm in a slubby oat linen, was meant to gather. After four weeks I can report, with some affection and a little disappointment, that it mostly does. Mostly is, of course, the operative qualifier in any honest review of upholstered furniture, and it will recur. ¹
I should establish at the outset what the Hadleigh is, and is not. It is a turned-leg, eight-way hand-tied roll arm in the manner that George Smith built a small empire on. It is not, despite catalogue copy gestures in that direction, a Smith. It costs roughly a fifth of what a Smith costs, and the difference shows in places that are not initially obvious. The frame is kiln-dried hardwood, which is right and good. The webbing is jute. The cushions are wrapped feather over a foam core, the foam being firmer than I would have specified given the option. The skirt is a four-pleat kick, and the pleats lie flat, which in the world of mid-tier upholstery is a small triumph.
What you notice first is the seat depth, which is generous to the point of slouching. Justin, who is six foot and reads sitting up, found himself perpetually pushed forward by the cushion crown until he learned to put a small bolster behind the lumbar. This is not a defect, exactly. It is a choice. The Hadleigh has been built for the long evening, the languid posture, the second glass of wine. If you are looking for a sofa to read upright in for two hours, this is not the right sofa. Buy a wing chair.
The Hadleigh is correct without being eloquent. Most rooms do not need an eloquent sofa.
The arm, that defining roll, is correctly proportioned. There is a generation of English-style sofas being sold this year whose arms have been lowered and softened to the point of evoking a child's drawing of a couch. The Hadleigh's arm is full and tightly upholstered and reads, from across the room, as architecture. This matters more than it might seem. A sofa is the largest decorative object in most living rooms. Its silhouette is its argument. The Hadleigh's argument is intact. ²
After two weeks the cushion crown began to settle. This is normal. After three weeks the front rail showed its first sign of pet-hair adhesion, despite weekly upholstery brushing. This is also normal but is more disagreeable than it ought to be in a fabric advertised as performance. The slubby oat linen is, in fact, a polypropylene blend, which I had assumed would shrug off a Russian Blue. It does not. A lint roller should be considered an accessory, not an option.
The price, I should say plainly, is the strongest thing about the Hadleigh. There is no roll-arm sofa I have sat on under three thousand dollars that holds its line as well, and the alternatives at this tier - the Birch Lane parlor sofa, the Pottery Barn Carlisle, the Joybird Briar - are each compromised in some particular way. The Hadleigh is compromised more lightly. Its compromises are matters of texture and density, not silhouette.
I watched a friend sit on it for the first time. She is a sharp-eyed person who notices the wrong thing about a chair before she has finished crossing the room. She sat, settled, looked around, and after a long silence said, 'It is not embarrassing.' I took this as a compliment and so should anyone shopping in this price tier. The Hadleigh is a sofa that does not embarrass the room. ³
What it does not do is surprise the room. There is a category of furniture that you sit on and feel, somehow, more articulate. The good club chair does this. The deep wing does this. A great old library sofa, cracked leather and brass nailheads, can do this for forty years. The Hadleigh does not. It is correct without being eloquent. After four weeks I have made peace with this. Most rooms do not need an eloquent sofa. Most rooms need a sofa that holds its silhouette through pet hair and party guests and the slow grind of a winter evening, and on those grounds the Hadleigh does its job.
I will note, in fairness, that the assembly was unremarkable in the best sense. Two people, forty minutes, a Phillips head and the legs that came in a labeled bag. The cushion zippers are correctly placed and run smoothly. The dust cover is properly fitted to the underside. These are details that betray a manufacturer's discipline or its absence, and the Hadleigh's manufacturer has discipline.
If I had three thousand dollars to spend on a sofa I would still be looking. If I had eighteen hundred and a deadline, I would stop looking and buy this. Recommended with reservations.