Photo / Tim Greenway
Lisa von Hasseln, a cutter for Elms Puzzles, operates a scroll saw to cut out pieces at her home in Bridgton.
Updated: May 5, 2025
Made in Maine: A Harrison company’s hand-cut, wooden jigsaw puzzles are an artisan luxury
Photo / Tim Greenway
Lisa von Hasseln, a cutter for Elms Puzzles, cuts pieces at her home in Bridgton.
By Bridget Reed Morawski
Chris Danner can’t remember the first time he completed an Elms Puzzle. But he easily recalls the ones that “really blew me away” as a child, like an over 800-piece set he remembers illustrated with a fish in aquamarine and tangerine tones with an irregular border.
Now the owner of Harrison-based Elms Puzzles, he looks fondly back on his family’s puzzling tradition, even if the complexity meant it “just took us forever” to do. Though the puzzles were often on the kitchen table, the Christmas season always led Danner and his father to rent puzzles designed by an artist known for their elaborate borders and elegant winter scenes.
While many families have whiled away a sleepy evening over a puzzle, these aren’t the type you’ll find in just any toy store.
Each of the hand-cut pieces are made of premium five-ply hardwood, providing a satisfying heft for the puzzler. (The puzzle itself is a quarter inch thick.) Unlike the handful of different shapes you might encounter in a standard retail set, the hand-cut nature of these puzzles means that the shapes are only limited to the artists' imaginations. And the company contracts with dozens of them; artistic themes vary as widely as the sweeping impressionist floral landscapes of fine artist Anisa Asakawa and a moodier set of Vasilisa Romanenko’s animal portraits.
Then there’s the whimsy pieces. An artist can choose to make these special pieces any shape at all; a puzzle of a still life with pomegranates, oranges and lemons included smile-inducing pieces shaped like a cocktail, a tree, a pair of fish and a child with a basket. Danner noted that another puzzle, a 1,000-piece set of national parks and monuments, includes four whimsy pieces detailing the presidential faces of Mount Rushmore.
“It really is the artwork and the artist having this dialogue, and then you as the puzzler experiencing that and letting it all unfold,” says Danner.
That exceptional experience, however, does come at a price. While a 500-piece puzzle at a retailer might cost just over $20, renting a similarly sized Elms Puzzle costs around $100. Looking to buy one outright? Several of their ready-to-ship puzzles start at around $1,000.
Renting is what most people do, with some renting “for years and years” before deciding to purchase or commission a puzzle as a family heirloom, Danner noted.
“What we have today is a lot of people who, like me, [have made these puzzles] part of their family traditions that they’ve now passed on, and the new generation of folks are doing them,” says Danner, noting how many people are looking to reduce their screen time. “There’s this yearning for non-digital entertainment, for time to just let your mind calm down, time to spend and connect with your loved ones and with your friends.”
While some costs are likely to go up for Elms Puzzles in the coming years — the company relies on wood and ink suppliers that have said they may be subject to threatened tariffs — some creative cost-cutting he says will allow renters to save roughly 30%.
Hearing customers seeking more flexible return options, Elms Puzzles peered over its customer data to find that most weren’t keeping their puzzles for the full six-week rental period. Instead, they were returned closer to the four-week mark.
That realization led the team to now offer more flexibility and cost-savings to customers through less-lengthy rental periods. It’s a win-win for puzzlers and Elms Puzzles; the puzzler doesn’t have to keep the puzzle or pay for more time than they need, while the company can receive and reoffer that same puzzle to other customers more quickly.
“Without having to lower our prices, we’re able to change things, where folks can get in at a more accessible level,” Danner says.
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