When your tile goes out of style
Celebrities and bathhouses alike turn to one local company.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
There’s plenty to be impressed with at the Conway Symphony Designer House — including, oddly enough, the kitchen floor.
“People continue to say, ‘These are the original floors, aren’t they?’” said Joanne Stevens, who owns the house that recently was renovated for a fundraising event.
Indeed, the kitchen floor — a matrix of 1-inch white hexagonal tiles with a gray patterned border — was a popular style at the turn of the 20th century.
But despite the perfect vintage look, these tiles are only antique in appearance. Every inch of tile covering the kitchen floor was formed, fired and glazed at American Restoration Tile in Mabelvale, one of the few companies in the United States that specializes in reproducing antique tile.
In the past eight years, the company has done plenty of jobs close to home, such as the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs. But the company’s ability to render a somewhat unusual service has given it national and international recognition, too. They’ve provided tiles for The Lincoln Cottage in Washington, D.C. and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House Complex in Buffalo, N.Y., as well as the private residences of celebrities like Michelle Pfeiffer and Woody Allen. Their business has even extended across the Atlantic to Finland, where they reproduced antique tiles for a couple of cruise liners.
It’s all thanks to one man’s passion for tiny ceramic squares. Bryan Byrd, owner of American Restoration Tile, said it was his background in ceramics engineering and business that led him to start a tile company.
“It’s kind of a pure business: It takes science, art and a little bit of voodoo,” he said.
Many times, modern tile is used to repair antique tile surfaces, and Byrd said the new tile usually doesn’t match the shape or color of the tiles it was meant to replace.
After receiving a picture or sample of the tile that the client wants reproduced, Byrd said his crew uses one of 60 die machines — many of them purchased from other tile companies that went out of business — to make the specific size and shape of tile required. The tiles are fired in a giant kiln, and a crew member meticulously glazes each one so that the replacement tiles fit right in with the old ones.
Stevens said that American Restoration Tile provided the tile not only for the kitchen but for five bathrooms and a half bath in the Conway Symphony Designer House.
“I was looking to get historically correct tile for the house,” she said. “The house is Southern Colonial, and even though it was built in 1951, it can be decorated much more consistent with its style.”
And if visitors’ responses are any indication, American Restoration Tile was able to evoke an older era with its work.
“If you have an appreciation for history, and older kinds of tile, then you’ll immediately see that in the designs, and in the tile itself,” she said.
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