Bonham Design is husband and wife team Ben Bonham and Heather Staten. They live on eighteen acres along the Hood River in a house they built and designed. Their home was featured in the 2011 Columbia Gorge Earth Center Green Living Tour and incorporates many energy efficient features as well as utilizing reclaimed and salvaged materials. 

Ben Bonham  was born in London, England. Ben's father is an architect, and Ben took an interest in the arts from an early age. He studied Art and Design at Bristol Polytechnic before taking a BA Honors degree in Three Dimensional Design with a specialization in Furniture from Leeds Metropolitan University. Ben is heavily influenced by European design movements of the 1920s and 30s (such as Bauhaus and De Stihl) and their mantra that “form follows function.” But his designs are far from the cold utility of much Modernism. He is concerned with building around the needs of individual people, including their need for aesthetic pleasure. A trip to Glasgow while at design school, to see the buildings of Charles Rennie Macintosh, inspired a belief that the ideal home should be not just a “machine for living” but also a work of art. Ben is the principal furniture maker, with a fully outfitted shop capable of handling large timbers and reclaimed materials. In the Gorge, he is also well known as a musician playing in a number of local bands—www.benbonham.com.

Heather Staten studied History and History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then she has divided her time between the arts and hospitality industry. Swept up by the food revolution centered in Berkeley, she cooked professionally for many years as well as spending five years as the general manager of Phelps Creek Vineyards. While living in Britain, she became interested in antiques, working for an auction house and attending Sotheby's Furniture Course in London. Moving back to the States, she managed San Francisco's Foster-Gwin Antiques which specializes in Continental -especially Italian- furniture and works of art from the 17th and 18th centuries. As well as giving her a strong grounding in historical decorative styles, handling old furniture sharpened her eyes to what lasts in furniture. Will it look more beautiful in 20 years than it does when new? Heather does much of the finish work. She enjoys employing traditional hand-applied natural finishes on wood and likes the challenge of creating distressed or aged finishes on metal and mirrors.