Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings specialized in classically informed, custom-made furniture. Around 1943, the Widdicomb Furniture Company engaged him to create a signature line, which he continued to design until the mid-1950s. This dramatic table was introduced in January 1952 and is one of the most exuberant expressions of organic design in American furniture. As a contemporary critic observed, the shape "was inspired by an aerial view of the mesa lands of New Mexico." It encapsulated the sprawling, American landscape and was part of Robsjohn-Gibbings’s larger program of formulating a modern, American design through the use of indigenous woods, colors, and references. The Mesa Table came in three sizes (Yale’s is the largest). The commodious proportions responded to the contemporary trend for ranch houses, which featured large, multipurpose living spaces. Robsjohn-Gibbings believed ranch architecture was "modern building in its most relaxed and unpretentious attitude." The freeform Mesa Table supported relaxed patterns of entertaining: it was low to the ground, asymmetrical, and invited informal arrangements of objects. Mesa Tables had American walnut veneer with either blonde or amber-brown "Sienna" finish. Their grand scale and labor-intensive construction made them luxury items; a similar version of this table retailed for $719 in 1952. This example was purchased for Longleat, the Princeton, New Jersey, estate of Evelyn and Robert Wood Johnson II, the president of Johnson & Johnson.