Australian custom furniture maker Rohan Ward commissioned to build a table for Barack Obama

WHEN the US government calls and asks you to do something. You do it. What was it they specifically wanted from this Aussie?

WHEN the President of the United States of America asks you to make a table for him, you do it.

Australian furniture maker Rohan Ward was approached by Barack Obama’s State Department with a commission for a table late last year.

Immediately, he knew he had to say yes.

After graduating from Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art, Ward has been running his own business design and making high-end, custom wood furniture for more than 10 years. He moved to Chicago seven years ago to continue his work there.

Rohan Ward at work in his workshop.

But the highlight of Mr Ward’s career to date came when he received the call from a representative of the US State Department a week before Christmas 2013, asking him whether he could build a table for President Obama to give to the French President Francois Hollande as a gift.

Ward had to submit designs before his table was approved. He sent them sketches as well as a miniature replica.

“I got a phone call and they told me ‘The President loves the model of your table, and he has it on his desk in the Oval Office’,” Ward told the Chicago Tribune.

Table commissioned for Barack Obama, made from a piece of fallen oak from a tree within George Washington’s estate in Mount Vernon.

But time was tight.

Ward says he “worked literally around the clock” throughout January and February to finish the piece in time for President Hollande’s state visit to Washington D.C on February 11.“I ended up working on the table for about 350 hours,” Mr Ward said.

Ward was asked by a State Department representative to incorporate some historical elements into the table design, including a “piece of fallen oak from a tree within George Washington’s estate in Mount Vernon, as well as a replica of the key to the Bastille given by The Marquis de Lafayette to George Washington in 1790,” Ward said.

The replica key, set under glass in the centre of the table.

The replica key was forged by a blacksmith and made from reclaimed steel from the Statue of Liberty using 18th century tools and techniques.

Ward also incorporated other hardwoods native to America in his design, including cherry and walnut timbers.

When the table was finished, Mr Ward drove it to Washington D.C. himself and was invited to the state luncheon honouring Hollande’s visit. There he met French President Hollande, Vice President Biden and other officials.

More information about Rohan Ward here.

Exquisite taste: US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande toast each other during a State Dinner at the White House on February 11, 2014. Picture: AFP

The table was furnished from oak, cherry and walnut timber.