American Exotic
Then, tastes changed, the world got smaller, and builders of large projects discovered concrete. Interior stone for kitchens and baths came from the four corners of the earth.
However, with the decline of the U.S. dollar against some of the world’s other currencies, coupled with rising transportation costs, domestic products are starting to look at little more attractive again.
While domestic quarries likely won’t provide stone for all purposes, there’s plenty of variety for interior uses. And, in the past decade, there’s been exploration beyond the usual stone centers of the United States, offering some eye-catching products from right here at home.
Colors of the Wind
SAN ANTONIO, Texas – There aren’t a lot of stones in the world that are translucent, but Sharron and Bill Hanson believe the honeycomb calcite offered by their Colors of the Wind can compete with nearly any onyx.
“We definitely fit into the exotic-stone market,” says Sharron Hanson, the company’s president. “There are very few honey-gold amber stones in the world, and those that are out there aren’t as clear and vibrant a color as what we offer, and they don’t emit as much light.”
She adds that the Utah-quarried honeycomb calcite is used for any number of purposes, from vanity tops and shower walls to backsplashes and water features, but the ability to incorporate light into the stone’s uses helped create a whole additional range of products.
“One of the things we do for commercial clients is privacy windows and divider walls,” she says. “We also work with two or three design companies that make one-of-a-kind lamps, so it’s used for covers for wall sconces and chandeliers.”
Additionally, Colors of the Wind is negotiating with a fireplace manufacturer to include cylinders of the stone to enhance the ambiance with a warm, amber glow. Working with a tile manufacturer, the company is planning to introduce a new line of translucent and transparent tile early next year.
The Hansons are promoting the stone as best they can. A marketing budget Sharron Hanson describes as “shoestring” had the couple start modestly by contacting builders and designers in their local area.
That’s since expanded to the Houston and Dallas markets, and the opportunity to provide lenses for the light fixtures in a large Houston mall helped get the word out. The couple also placed ads in high-end magazines appealing to those able to afford multi-million-dollar homes.
“We’re like the medical industry,” she says. “We show our product to make consumers want it and ask for it. We want consumers to take our name to their designer or architect and say, ‘This is what I want; figure out how to do it.’”
Bill Hanson says the company expanded to offer honeycomb calcite gift items in locations around the United States. Early next year qualifying retail stores will be given the opportunity to carry the full line of Colors of the Wind natural-stone products exclusively in their areas.
So far, the company hasn’t had much luck catching the eyes of traditional stone distributors. “We figure one of these days we’ll catch somebody’s eye and it will be the right time and the right place,” says Sharron Hanson.
Devonian Stone of New York Inc.
WINDSOR, N.Y. – Glacier Blue™ Devonian Sandstone may not be quite as rare as onyx or fossil stone, but the product quarried and sold by Devonian Stone of New York Inc. has something designers and specifiers crave: a strong, consistent blue color.
Although the company started to provide the natural cleft bluestone typically used in landscaping more than a decade ago, president Robert Bellospirito took the deposit deeper he found a much higher quality material with a pale blue hue.
“The only stones that match this color are stones coming from Italy,” says Bellospirito. “Since we’re a domestic stone, we’re much more economical than what’s being imported, and our lead times are much, much shorter.”
Found only in New York and northeast Pennsylvania, Glacier Blue also retains a high level of structural integrity, providing cut tolerances of +/- 1/16”, which allow it to meet the most-demanding architectural specifications.
Couple that with the stone’s ability to be take a variety of finishes, including sawn, flamed, hones, polished and sandblasted, and it’s little wonder that people are turning to Glacier Blue for interior purposes such as fireplaces, showers and baths, and even countertops. One area that’s particularly strong for Devonian Stone is flooring, says Bellospirito, although for added durability he suggests tiles be sealed.
Devonian Stone’s ability to quickly and economically offer custom-cut stone with short lead times means the company hasn’t been adversely impacted by the current economy. If anything, Bellospirito says it’s generating a lot of interest from architects nationwide, and the company is beefing up its distributor network to make it as readily available as possible.
“Our toughest marketing challenge is just letting people know about it, how it performs and where it’s available,” says Bellospirito. “We need to get more information out about its durability, but where it’s readily available we’re definitely taking on higher-end products.”
Bellospirito is proud to be offering a stone that’s quarried in the United States. Not only does he expect the current economy to drive more buyers to domestic stones, but he’s looking at taking on some other high-end stones that are native to this country.
“I can’t discuss the particulars, but we’re interested in acquiring other properties with unique, high-end stones,” he says. “We want to have a complete high-end product line out there.”
Green River Stone
LOGAN, Utah – Greg Laco doesn’t have to wonder just how the public perceives his Green River Stone. This fish-fossils-in-calcium-carbonate-shale product is often sold to private galleries, and buyers are hanging it as art.
That’s not its only use, however.
“Other primary uses are as tiles for showers and backsplashes,” says Laco. “We also do vanity tops, table tops and kitchen countertops, as well.”
Although the appeal of the fossils is high, Laco says it hasn’t necessarily been easy to market, particularly as a functional stone. The company attended Coverings in 2007 and got what Laco feels was “a tremendous response.”
Still he says the company is still in its infancy in terms of getting the stone into distributors’ showrooms, with most of the company’s sales coming either from interested homeowners or designers looking for something different.
“We’ve done some print ads and we have a presence on the Internet that gets us inquiries every day,” he says. “We really haven’t focused on distributors much, and we’re still trying to simplify things and develop marketing materials to go with it.”
Laco feels Green River Stone is in competition with some of the top imported exotic stones, which requires sales people to be more-knowledgeable than when selling marble or granite.
“With most stone, you get some variation from slab-to-slab,” he says. “With our product, we have many different layers of stone in the quarry, each with different characteristics, and within those different layers, different species of fossil fish occur. Then, the orientation they occur at within the slab is also random and variable.”
The trick, Laco says, is to narrow down what a particular customer is seeking and then give them specific choices.
Because of the uniqueness of the stone and the need to give a good presentation of the fossils, Laco says it’s also Green River’s preference to fabricate it at its Logan facility (the stone is quarried in southwestern Wyoming) and ship ready-to-install products.
“We can fabricate to templates or measurements,” he says.
At approximately $500 a square foot, Green River Stone is definitely priced for upscale buyers, but Laco says he doesn’t want to scare those with more modest budgets away.
“Even a single fossil tile makes a nice impact in a shower or backsplash,” he says. “They can buy a little and still get high impact.”