Before it was a cat bed, it was a secret. This former Philco console radio — circa 1939 — was built in the era when furniture still had theater: a hidden lid that concealed the dial, double doors that swung open to reveal the speaker, a cabinet that could pass for a Georgian armoire in a Manhattan townhouse. That DNA is still fully intact. It's just been promoted. This is a custom model in which the radio was provided by the buyer.
Painted in a deep slate navy and lined with a dark botanical wallpaper, the cabinet's original X-pattern grille doors now frame a cat sanctuary rather than a speaker cloth. The brass bail handle — the original hardware, polished to a warm gleam — still pulls open the upper lid, though now it conceals nothing more pressing than an idle afternoon. And wired directly through the original radio knob: two working pendant lamps with hand-blown glass globes, casting a warm amber glow over the plush cat cushions below. Eighty-five years after someone sat in front of this cabinet to catch the evening broadcast, the knob still does something.
The result is a piece that reads first as furniture — a handsome, sculptural cabinet that earns its place in any room — and reveals itself slowly. The fluted pilasters, the Greek key frieze beneath the lid, the Georgian bracket feet: all original, all still here. The cats, it turns out, have excellent taste.
