A Three-Species Custom Salish Antler Chandelier for a Whitetail Country Lodge

Quick summary

A customer loved one of our elk and mule deer designs but needed it narrower. Dante rebuilt it with mule deer, elk and whitetail antler, giving him a 12-light, 48-inch chandelier that fits his room and represents his own region’s deer.

Custom 12-light elk, mule deer and whitetail antler chandelier in a pine lodge

A Design Built on Branching Elk

Our Salish is an elk and mule deer design, and its signature is the branching elk antler running throughout — wide, generous beams that give the piece its dimension and scale. This customer loved the design but needed it narrower. His room couldn’t take the full spread.

Why Smaller Elk Antler Doesn’t Work

The obvious fix doesn’t work. Smaller elk antler loses the branching that makes the design attractive in the first place — you get a narrower chandelier, but you lose the character along with the width.

Species Instead of Scale

So Dante solved it with species instead of scale. He built the bottom tier from extra-large mule deer antler, which gave the fullness and branching the design needs at a diameter that actually fit the room. Elk runs through the upper column, where the heavier beams carry the structure. And because the customer lives in whitetail country and wanted his own region’s deer represented, Dante worked whitetail through both tiers — whitetail is too small to carry a wide bottom on its own, but threaded through the piece it reads beautifully.

“Narrowing a design isn’t just building it smaller — shrink everything down and you lose what made it work. The trick is figuring out which antler does which job. Mule deer gave me the spread I needed on the bottom, elk carried the column, and the whitetail is what made it his. Three species, one piece.”

Dante Martin, maker

The Finished Chandelier

The finished chandelier is twelve lights, eight in the lower tier and four in the upper, roughly 48 inches in diameter and 56 inches tall. It hangs in a vaulted pine room among the customer’s own mounts, which is exactly where it belongs.

Three-Species Chandelier Project Details

Design	Custom build based on our Salish
Antler	Mule deer (lower tier), elk (upper column), whitetail (both tiers)
Lights	12 (8 lower tier, 4 upper tier)
Size	About 48″ diameter x 56″ tall
Setting	Vaulted pine lodge room
Certification	UL Listed, File E238337 (US & Canada)

Love a Design but Need It to Fit?

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