 In 1880, he and Louis Comfort Tiffany established the firm of Tiffany & de Forest, which focused largely on the importation of East Indian decorative arts.By 1883, de Forest had set up his own import business, based in New York City, which distributed carved teakwood furniture, tracery panels, jewelry, and textiles, some of which were produced in his workshop in Ahmedabad, India.For the second and third renovations of the Deanery in 1894–1896 and 1908–1909, M. Carey Thomas consulted de Forest for the design and decoration of the Deanery's interior.