iMovR Lander Executive Solid Wood Standing Desk Review

The Bentley of Sit-Stand Executive Desks

That’s a big claim for the iMovR Lander Solid Wood Executive Desk, so let’s back that up right up front. This exquisite desk is the very pinnacle of luxury executive desks in the standing desk category, bar none. We can say that with complete confidence because we’ve reviewed them in all in our comprehensive round-up of Executive Standing Desk Reviews. Plus, as you’ll read below, we even went out and test drove a Bentley just to compare the shopping experiences.

First, let’s define what exactly “executive desk” means, because a lot of furniture manufacturers take liberty with this term. For starters, it’s usually, but not always, a bit larger than the average desk. By design, an executive desk creates an air of professionalism and status. It’s larger size and detailed design touches give a feeling of importance, emphasized by having expansive built-in storage.

In general, an executive desk is sought out by those who need ample surface area and ample storage space, two things that the vast majority of standing desks lack. (Having said that, the exception proves the rule: with so many executives living as road warriors with a laptop these days, it can also be a more compact sit-stand desk with a lot of designer panache and some modest built-in storage, such as iMovR’s Baltic birch Captain’s Desk.)

Of course calling a height-adjustable desk an executive desk also implies a bigger price tag, usually starting at around $2,200 for the smallest ones, and going up to as much as $13,300 at the very largest and most luxurious. And so right there is the most immediate distinction from ordinary, less expensive standing desks: executive desks just about always feature elegant solid wood surfaces. In the case of the iMovR Lander Executive all the surfaces, built-in drawers and cable-concealing cabinetry are made entirely of artisan-handcrafted solid wood. For this desk, iMovR uses only the most select cuts of domestic, sustainable lumber, and honest materials.

Sure, we’re used to seeing these desks in corner offices or the “fish bowl” executive suite at the company offices, but increasingly we’re seeing them going into high end home offices, as well. Like donning a bespoke, hand-tailored Savile Row suit, sitting at such a luxurious desk is positively transformative. We’re not exaggerating when we say that working at a gorgeous desktop boosts your sense of confidence and wellbeing, and subtly changes the way you conduct yourself in meetings or on Zoom calls, and even how you carry yourself throughout the work day.

We’ve felt it ourselves every time we’ve had the pleasure of sitting at one of these executive standing desks, it’s really quite a remarkable sensation. A sensation we can all relate to whenever any of us have had the opportunity to put a tuxedo for a wedding or an amazing evening gown for a charity event. We can say without reservation that we’ve never stood or sat at any other standing desk that has exuded this sensation quite like the Lander Executive Desk does.

Whether you’re looking towards a more empowered version of yourself in your glass-walled executive suite office, or while working from home in your cashmere PJs with the fireplace crackling in the background, the Lander Executive Solid Wood Desk is going to elevate your mood more than any other solid wood standing desk out there.

Coincidentally, our new offices here in Bellevue, WA are located within walking distance of the Bentley, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Lotus, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes, Cadillac and even Tesla showrooms on NE 20th Street, all serving the nouveau riche of the vibrant tech community that surrounds us. (Around here, the more casually dressed a person shopping car dealerships is, the higher their net worth is likely to be, letting even us get the full experience of shopping like tech millionaires.) So, we’ve actually experienced what it’s like test driving a Bentley Bentayga, and learned all about what buying such a “bespoke” luxury product is like.

While not a quarter-million dollar SUV, relative to the price of lesser standing desks, the Lander Executive is going to top the charts. In fact, there’s never been another standing desk in this price range outside of iMovR’s own solid wood L-desks and extra-large rectangular desks in the most premiums species selections they offer, which reach the bottom of the Executive Desk’s price tag. A new Lander Executive Desk will run you between $5,600 and $13,300, depending on the size and wood species you select. And you could easily add another $1K-$8K in décor-matching ergonomic accessories and furniture accessories, from desktop-accessed power modules or an iMovR EMMA electric monitor arm to solid wood file cabinets, credenzas, book cases and more. iMovR is constantly adding matching furniture accessory items to their Lander Solid Wood Collection. You can even get a matching Synapse sit-stand conference table in the exact same solid wood finish, if your office is large enough.

Configuring a Lander Executive Desk is a lot like customizing a bespoke luxury car. Everything from the size of the desk and choosing from a selection of 38 stunning species+stain finishes to configuring the optional 1800W Executive Power Bus system involves visualizing how it will fit your space, match with your décor, accommodate your computer equipment, and fit your unique work style. And then, once ordered, you will need to wait a bit, like a child anxiously looking forward to that new bike they’ve been promised for Xmas (if they behaved well). It takes 6-8 weeks for iMovR’s artisan furniture woodworkers in Michigan to hand craft your custom-ordered desk, using an exacting seven-step production process that is necessary for producing a thing of such unmatched beauty and perfection.

The end product is indeed an end product, meaning it is shipped to you fully assembled, with white glove delivery service to place it exactly where you want it in the room of your choice, just like having that new Bentley delivered straight to your garage by the dealership. Given that each desk weighs somewhere between 250 and 380 lbs with all those built-in solid wood drawers and cable cabinetry, this is a serious piece of furniture for which iMovR was wise to include inside delivery built into the price.

It Starts With A Real Design Team

Let’s be candid. At just about every other standing desk manufacturing company, new standing desk models are created by product managers who select a lifting base vendor and a fabricator of desktops, they marry the two together and call it good. The desktops may be rectangular or some other shape, and they may be made from any number of common desktop materials used on standing desks, but there are usually no actual furniture design professionals in the room. Often there are no ergonomists in the room either, so little thought is given to things like being able to mount monitor arms. This is one of several reasons why you don’t see a lot of high-end executive desks in the marketplace. While most manufacturers are in a race to the bottom to compete on price, the upper end of the market has, until relatively recently, had few really nice desk options to offer customers who are less budget sensitive.

The executive desk category is in fact dominated by iMovR, which is the only one with a lead furniture designer on the team that collaborates closely with real engineers, and the most experienced standing desk product team in the industry. That lead furniture designer is Vincent Leman, who runs the 32,000 sq ft Benton Harbor, Michigan plant where iMovR makes all of its handcrafted solid wood desks. Prior to joining up with iMovR, Leman designed a few exotic pieces for Fully, like the Albright and the Evolve. While both of these desks are beautiful, they were clearly designed without the collaboration of ergonomists and have some practical limitations for all-day desk users. They’re also built on low-quality Jiecang lifting bases made in China, not the high-tech American-built Linak bases that iMovR exclusively uses in all their Lander desks.

According to iMovR’s folks and Leman himself, they spent more than two years prototyping the Lander Executive, which was originally code named the “Admiral’s Desk” when we first started hearing about it in 2020. Leman and iMovR’s team of engineers and ergonomists were charged with designing the first true executive desk, with the following parameters:

• Use the most select cuts of sustainable, domestic lumber species, and the highest level of craftsmanship on every piece of wood in the desk; use no plywoods or veneer panels, just 100% solid wood
• Include three drawers, mounted on the nicest soft-close slide rails available
• Incorporate a spacious cabinet along the entire back edge of the desk for concealing all the cables and power supplies a high-power desk user might have; making sure the desk looks as nice against a wall as in the center of a room with guest chairs facing the user
• Due to the massive weight of the desk, build a custom steel frame system inside of it for maximum stability, using the most powerful lifting base ever used on standing desk (with 540 lbs. lift capacity)
• Integrate an optional, highly customizable Executive Power Bus system to support up to 1800W of computer equipment off a single power cord coming up the leg, with numerous desktop power module options, all UL-approved
• Incorporate design features to optimize installation for iMovR’s EMMA electric monitor arm system
• Factory pre-assemble the entire desk so it can be delivered inside the customer’s office with white glove delivery
• Make the desk available in 59″, 65″, 71″, 77″, 83″, 89″ and 95″ widths

A Family Of Complementary Accessories

iMovR’s strategy behind this product line is to offer the same kind of executive suite office furniture that would ordinarily only be obtainable through an interior designer working with a custom furniture shop, and convert that to a fluid e-commerce experience—at a fourth of the price and four times the production speed—all centered around the height-adjustable desk. Indeed we’ve visited with some of these custom office furniture shops in the past; they make great stuff, but it’s pricey, takes forever, and the one thing they’re often not particularly good at is building the desk around a adequately-powered lifting base.

The Lander Executive Desk is one of the four cornerstones of iMovR’s Solid Wood Collection. The idea is to create a selection of matching solid wood furniture accessories to bring together an entire office in the same luxurious finishes, all centered around a height-adjustable executive desk, and including a variety of storage accessories such as the mobile file cabinet, credenza and fly deck shown below. More matching accessory pieces like bookcases, etageres and whiteboard cabinets are coming next year, we are told.

The four cornerstones of the Solid Wood Collection are the height-adjustable elements: the Lander Executive Desk we review here, the regular 2-legged Lander Desk in solid wood, the 3-legged Lander L-desk in solid wood (shown below), and the new Synapse meeting table in solid wood (coming January, 2023, shown below).

So with that backstory out of the way, let’s get on with the Lander Executive Desk’s details…