A custom antler chandelier does not usually require its builder to buy a new crane; the Mt. Bross XXL did. Ten feet wide, eight feet tall, 560 pounds, 33 elk antler sheds, and 62 candle lights, built over eight weeks in Peak Antler’s Colorado studio for a private residence near San Antonio, Texas.
The design is based on the standard Mt. Bross chandelier, a two-tier elk platform with a mica and rawhide dome at its core. The Mt. Bross works well at typical great-room scale. Bringing it to ten feet in diameter is a different project entirely.
Designing for the Space
The standard Mt. Bross features two tiers of elk antler around a central iron-and-mica frame, and at typical great-room scale, its proportions hold well. Scaling that design to ten feet across meant rethinking the structure underneath it. The frame has to carry 560 pounds of antler, hardware, and electrical components from a single hanging point, which is a different engineering problem than a standard commission.
Peak Antler worked with Frontier Ironworks in Wyoming to build the iron base. The frame was designed for the load and the span of the finished piece, engineered so the skeleton could carry the full weight without flex or drift over time.
Selecting and Composing 33 Elk Antler Sheds
Thirty-three elk antler sheds went into the piece, all 6, 7, and 8 point. At ten feet across, every antler is visible from somewhere in the room, which means every antler has to sit right against its neighbors, matched for sweep, balanced for tine count, positioned so the silhouette reads as one continuous form rather than a collection of individual pieces.
The lower tier is where that challenge is most concentrated. It was built as two separate layers of antler, stacked and woven together so tightly that the finished ring shows no seam between them. Once the chandelier is hung, nothing about the lower tier suggests it was built in two halves. The upper tier was composed the same way at a smaller diameter, and the two are connected by heavy-duty chain sized and finished to look intentional from below.
Engineering the Lighting
The Mt. Bross XXL carries 62 candle lights across both tiers, each one placed to follow the natural sweep of the antlers around it rather than spaced on a grid. When the chandelier is lit, the light reads evenly from any position in the room. No dead spots, no clusters, just a continuous warm glow tracing the line of the antler structure.
The mica and rawhide dome at the center added a second layer. Downlights inside the dome washed through the mica panels and rawhide, casting warm light upward into the antlers and outward into the room. From below, the dome read as a glowing core.
All wiring was routed through the interior of the antlers. For a piece with 62 candles plus the downlight system, that meant drilling and concealing one of the most complex electrical harnesses Peak Antler has built.
Three-Section Construction and Delivery
From the beginning of the build, the Mt. Bross XXL was designed to come apart. At 10 feet wide and 560 pounds, it could not ship or install as a single piece. The chandelier was engineered as three sections: two halves of the lower tier and the upper tier. Each one was assembled, wired, and finished in the studio as a standalone unit, with every connection point specified so the sections would close seamlessly on site.
Getting it there meant loading the three sections into a truck in Colorado and driving them to San Antonio. Peak Antler delivered and installed the piece directly, working with the electrician on site. The three sections were reconnected at ground level. The antler, chain, mica dome, rawhide, and all 62 lights were fitted and tested on the floor of the great room. Once everything was connected and confirmed, the piece was raised into position and lit for the first time in the room it was built for.
The Finished Piece
When the hoist locked and the Mt. Bross XXL settled into position for the first time, eight weeks of work became a single piece in a single room. Thirty-three elk antler sheds that arrived at the studio as raw material, now hung ten feet across in a great room in Texas.
Standing below it, the chandelier fills the ceiling. Ten feet of elk antler overhead, 62 candles lit, the mica dome casting warm light through the center of the piece. It is the kind of fixture that stops a conversation when someone walks through the front door.
Walk upstairs to the loft, and the same chandelier looks like a different piece entirely. The iron framework, the warm glow of the mica panels, the antler structure seen from above at close range. Most chandeliers are never viewed from this angle. The Mt. Bross XXL was built knowing it would be.
The Mt. Bross XXL is still the largest chandelier Peak Antler has built. It is also the project that proved what the studio is capable of at full scale. It started the same way every commission does, with a room that needed the right piece.
If you have a space that calls for something at this scale, or any scale, start a conversation about your project.
