About

Ladies and Gentleman,  Good afternoon and welcome;

Charlie J. Underwood is my name and custom caskets and coffins are my game. Since  about 1895 my forebears, and now I, have maintained a tradition of building bespoke caskets, coffins, cabinets and boxes for celebrities and tastemakers, world-changers and even dictators and mostly for those beautiful people who just wish to go out in style.

We have even worked with the desperate, the mad and the “original”! Even despots such as Hol Hotta the Gauger have  benefitted from our custom work. Because if you can’t go out in a blaze of glory you can at least go out in a flash and a puff of smoke. Life maybe short but style is forever…

In those days they used to say that if you can’t have it all you can still go out “under wood”!

SO, how did I become a custom casket, coffin and bespoke cabinet maker?

I came into this business entirely by accident. My great great grandfather, Washington Underwood, journeyed to the Indian subcontinent where he had attempted to forge an empire from an exotic coffee bean given to him by an Ethiopean mystic. During a nasty bout of malaria my grandfather’s heartbeat was irreversibly changed and he could speak only with a stutter.

One afternoon during a fracas with the Governor’s men in Ganjam, Orissa my fathers heart finally gave up the ghost and he met his untimely end.

Drawing his sabre high and clutching his sacred grounds, he fell backward into a well and expired. The remainder of the family were thrown below with feral cats and left to starve.

When the bodies were returned home my blind father, Zedoch Underwood, crafted caskets of exquisite design…a tradition that I continue, nobly and slowly to this very day. A tradition that I now can offer to you.

Eternally Yours,

Charlie Underwood.