Tile showroom displays European sophistication
In recent years Calgary has been able to attract a superb quality of contemporary design brands that were previously unobtainable for those wishing to decorate with fashionable European interiors.
Another exclusive showroom has opened along the 11th Avenue S.W., a retail strip that has become home to a number of furniture and accessory stores, art galleries and decor houses.
Headquartered in Spain, Porcelanosa is a global leader in the innovation, design, manufacture and distribution of tile, kitchen and bath products thanks to its trendsetting cutting edge designs, technologically superior products and dependable service to clients.
Launched 40 years ago as a porcelain floor tile company, Porcelanosa has become a leading Spanish example of environmentally friendly manufacturers; it recaptures its heat from kilns so that it uses no power from the grid.
It has since grown its interiors portfolio by launching a number of other specialist companies. Venis was its second venture making available high-end ceramic wall tiles simulating wallpaper. Urbatek is minimal thickness porcelain stoneware, available in large formats, a wide range of colours and, being lighter and thinner than others, is easily handled and cut.
L’Antic Colonial offers natural stone and wood products, glass and engineered wood floorings. It then moved it into kitchen and bathroom furniture with Gama Decor and Noken supplies a huge range of sinks, faucets and shower heads.
The showroom in Calgary, at 1334 11th Avenue S.W., is the dream of James Kershaw who recently moved here from Vancouver.
His father, Gary, has owned Fontile there for the past 20 years. Although he represents other suppliers, he says the popular Porcelanosa brands represent about 55 per cent of his business.
Porcelanosa has 450 companyowned locations around the world, but the Calgary store is the only Canadian, and one of only four that have been allowed to be owned by associates.
James worked for his father for the past 10 years but felt Calgary could be served by Porcelanosa. After spending several months here, with the help of Jeff Rob
son of Barclay Street Real Estate, he moved into what was at the time a rather rundown building. With the assistance of a crew from the head office in Villareal, province of Castellón it has since been transformed into a bright, attractive 4,000-square-foot showroom that displays stylish products including a highly original shape Krion bath and seamless kitchen sinks, and eyecatching sculptured wall tiles.
Downstairs is an 1,800-squarefoot library with working tables for the use of interior designers to meet with their clients where they will find 450 samples of different tiles.
Many interior designers and architects attended a recent showroom opening event. Said architect Dennis
Bathory: “Porcelanosa will surely be a hit with the local design market; this city is aching for such European sophistication.”
It was a moving experience to listen to all of the award winners being interviewed by Dave Kelly at the National Philanthropic Day luncheon. The Generosity of Spirit Award went to the
Jenkyns family, but it was Brian Foster, executive director of Operation Eyesight Universal who reminded me it was 50 years ago that Art Jenkyns founded the organization in Calgary that still sticks to its mission — “For All the World to See.”
One of Canada’s foremost airline families, Gordon and Dawn
Bartsch, spent many of their flying years serving the Arctic. Gordon has written a book about the sturdy people and amazing airplanes Lady on a Pedestal, a real-life tale told from a pilot’s perspective.
The “Lady” is a DC3 that was flown by Dawn, navigating above the hostile Arctic Circle region in the 1960s now on display atop a pedestal in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Next Tuesday, Nov. 26, they will be at the Calgary Aerospace Museum for a book signing and one of the first in line will be Roger
Jarvis. The former president of the Calgary Stampede and Jarvis Travel, he worked with CP Air in Whitehorse with Gord and Dawn was his instructor when he earned his commercial licence to fly.