Imagine it, and he can probably build it

Some old shops - and bars for that matter - sport hunting trophies on their walls. Bucks. Antelopes. Bears. Common woodland critters.

At Old World Workshops, there are dinosaur heads mounted above the machinery as though cabinetmaker Jesus Chaves bagged a prize in Jurassic Park.

There are other details that seem intriguingly out of place. Consider the Model T pick-up polished to the same sheen it had when it rolled off of Henry Ford's assembly line 90 years ago. An ornate 1960s console chest stripped, repainted and distressed to look like an expensive piece of designer furniture. A dog bed complete with trundle for sleepover guests.

But these are all footnotes to the real wizardry that emerges from this meticulous shop that specializes in custom woodwork, from cabinets and molding to window trims, shelving and furniture. Chaves has an eye for mimicry. Bring in an idea, a prototype, a picture, a sample. He will figure out a way to replicate it with uncanny accuracy.

He learned it the old world way, through years of apprenticeships at a string of local woodshops, where he pressed experienced carpenters to teach him their secrets starting at the age of 16. But it was during a long stint with Academy Studios in Novato, which specializes in constructing elaborate exhibits for museums and cultural attractions, that the 39-year-old woodworker learned the art of replication.

For Academy he traveled the globe, installing fanciful exhibits, like the Underground Adventure at the Chicago Field Museum, which blows up the world at your feet into giant proportions and The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where he oversaw 30-man crew creating a realistic world of waterfalls, boulders and flying pterodactyls made of Styrofoam. He even made an elaborate fiber-optic lighted display cabinet for then First Lady Hillary Clinton's collection of nativity scenes.

"Some of this stuff is so incredible, it looks real," he grins.

When George Googins came in with an old cabinet door from Tunisia, pessimistic about getting a match for his Moorish-style home in Petaluma, a confident Chaves told him to come back in a few days. When Googins was shown the new door, complete with the same distressed bluish-green patina from a century of paint jobs, he at first thought it was the original. Chaves and his team of 8 ended up doing multiple cabinets and doors and finishes for the Chileno Valley estate, painting and distressing each piece to look bewitchingly like the Real Deal.

Googins says he doesn't remember how it went down but he allows, "They want it to be what you want. They'll work with you to get your vision. I'm very particular and not particularly easy to work with design-wise. But I realize with crafstmen it's not a science. It's an art."

Chaves' mastery was honed over 20 years of observation and practice. He learned from Germans at one shop how to finely join without nails and glue. His care and hand-made quality has made Old World Workshops a quietly rising star in the world of custom woodwork, at a time when other shops were folding. His work graces wineries like Williams Selyem, the seven-block Park Merced project in Francisco State and fantasy kitchens whose antique faces conceal modern amenities.

Tapped to do projects within the national parks, he just completed a lifelike display tree for a Yosemite gift shop and filmed four three-day kitchen makeovers for the DIY/HGTV series "Kitchen Crashers."

Kristel DeVries of Petaluma, a supervising producer for the show, said Chaves and his partner and wife Sonja who manages the business and does computer assisted design, have that perfect combination of high skills, high energy and follow through.

"A lot of companies, when you ask, &‘Can you do this?' they just laugh at you. Jesus said, &‘Yeah! I love the challenge. Let's do it.'"

Perhaps more surprisingly, there is no project too small. Antique dealers bring in broken furniture for refinishing. His crew will do a $15 repair job or a $60,000 kitchen. He also does bookshelves, high tech cabinets, window frames, molding and vanities.

It's still hard for the craftsman to believe how far he has come.

A Kashia who faithfully teaches the old ways to his children, he was born at Stewart's Point Rancheria and grew up in a converted chicken coop on a woody property in Windsor. His grandma covered the cracks with newspaper and patched the leaks with soap. His "kitchen" was worlds away from the bells and whistles he creates for others - the built-in lazy susans, the slow-return drawers, the lifts for appliances, the cabinets with layered paints and glazes and special finishes that look like furniture time worn over generations of use.

"We used crates you would use for picking grapes. My mom would put cloth over them. We had a little four burner stove and a sink that was just two-by-four legs holding it up. But I didn't know we were poor. I loved growing up out there."

It taught him resourcefulness. He's built up his business slowly over 10 years, buying each piece of costly, cutting edge machinery only when he could pay cash.

He maintains that people who find their way out to his 8,000 square foot shop off Wright Road, are surprised to find him competitive with home improvement stores, in part because he charges only actual materials cost for more expensive woods like walnut and cherry.

He encourages clients with lower budgets but who want the high end look to go for less expensive but good hardwoods. Drawing on his set-design experience, he says woods like mineral maple can be finished or dyed to fool they eye.

"We have to do something to be different," he declares. "Because if we're just going to put boxes together we're going to look like everyone else."

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.