In 1898 he orchestrated the removal of his business partner and formed the Gustave* Stickley Company (*he dropped the use of the “e” in 1903).

In the summer of 1900 he worked with Henry Wilkinson and, possibly, LaMont A. Warner (soon his first staff designer) to create his first Arts and Crafts works in an experimental line called the New Furniture. In 1901 he changed the name of his firm to the United Crafts, issued a new catalogue written by Syracuse professor Irene Sargent, and began to offer middle class consumers a host of progressive furniture designs in ammonia-fumed quartersawn white oak, as well as other mostly native woods.