(Photo: John Lawton)

The Best Bet
After years of monochrome mimimalism, wood—with all its curves, grains, and scraps of bark intact—is making a comeback. And the inheritor of legendary George Nakashima’s legacy could be John Houshmand, who gets his elm, pine, and spalted maple from the same supersecret source as the late master. Houshmand’s designs meld strict simplicity with a straight-from-the-forest authenticity. Call it the new naturalism. This spalted-maple low table is $8,100 (627 Greenwich St., at Morton St.; 212-965-1238; by appointment only).