Obsidian Leather Goods Builds on a Legacy of Design With New Furniture Line
Drawing on generations of design heritage, the Austin studio will release its first custom furniture line in fall 2025
Not everyone is able to work with their spouse, let alone launch a wildly successful company. For Austinites Sandra Ernsberger and Carson Leh, it’s almost as if it was destined by fate. Ernsberger and Leh met only one mile (and 62 years later) from where Leh’s grandparents met in Venice Beach. Artists connected by a few generations, Ernsberger and Leh were written in the stars to carry on the family’s creative legacy, merging their artistic talents to create Obsidian Leather Goods. But let’s start at the beginning.
In 2013, Leh was living and working in Venice Beach, crafting intricate custom leather bicycle seats, bags and bar tape from his living room while working for award-winning architect, David Hertz. Thanks to the magic of current-day dating apps, he met Ernsberger, another creative. While Leh’s grandparents met while working at the Eames office and were integral in crafting many of the early Eames prototypes, Ernsberger also hailed from a family of craftspeople. She is Obsidian’s Operations Manager and has worked in luxury furniture manufacturing for 10 years. It was a personal and professional merger that just made sense. The rest, as they say, is history.
“We wouldn’t be here without families encouraging us to go into creative endeavors if that’s what we wanted to do,” said Leh.
The couple eventually moved to Austin a few years later and took a chance on themselves, launching Obsidian Leather Goods. The business crafts custom architectural leather installations, such as leather-wrapped doors, leather stair railings, built-in desk pads, leather stair treads and more. It also creates custom furniture, such as fully leather wrapped case goods, custom sofas and vintage restorations. Obsidian offers full service furniture design, from sketching, concept art, 3D models, technical drawing, manufacturing and final installation. They work with builders, architects, designers, and even the occasional direct homeowner, to help bring their dreams to life.
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The brand has also done white label production for a large luxury furniture brand for many years, thanks to its expertise in the space, and also recently released a hardware collaboration with Studio Marchant, which includes kidskin and shagreen wrapped hardware.
And yet, while the majority of Obsidian’s work to date has been custom or through these various partners, Ernsberger and Leh note one of the things they’re most excited about coming up is the launch of their bespoke furniture line in Fall 2025.
“The launch really is an extrapolation of what we’ve done in the past and our expertise,” said Ernsberger. “We’ve worked hard to do things with leather that other creatives haven’t done or haven’t experimented with. We want to showcase that, and all the possibilities, with this collection.”
They’ll launch the items—from nightstands to cocktail tables to benches and more—via their website and then scale from there.
Whether they’re hanging from tree harnesses to get that perfect angle for the right leather stitching or creating new home accents with just the last remaining pieces of a hide to maximize its value, creativity runs deep in Ernsberger’s and Leh’s bones.