Home

Advertorial

Op-Eds

articles

ghost writing

Newsletters

News Releases

my background

MLT Retrospect

Lehigh valley living

Brotherly Love Historic Trail

Tile is just a few square inches of stone or baked clay. But, these days, even tile is expected to multi-task.

Simply being impervious to spills is too modest a goal, say tile retailers. Americans today expect their cars to talk to satellites and their telephones to take photographs. Not surprisingly, therefore, our expectations of tile have risen as well. In addition to tile’s practical benefits, homeowners today also want rich looks and artistry – and, occasionally, a duplicate of a floor they loved at a great hotel.

To such ends, stone is better than ceramic. Big is better than small. Hand-crafted is better than machine-made. Custom is better than stock. A combination of different materials – including metal and glass tile – is better than a straight run of any single type. And more is more.

"Stone and ceramics that look like stone are huge," said Gene Nelson, president of Wallcoverings Ltd., Bridgeport. "People love the feel and look of stone." And the stone-y it feels, the better. According to Nelson, tile that seems to have spent the past thousand years as paving in a Roman alley is considered far more desirable than something that appears to to have come straight from the quarry. Think tumbled, not polished. Aged, not honed.

In short, think of the new travertine floor in the home of Stuart and Faye, a Radnor couple who insist it makes the house feel warmer, cleaner and larger. Eighteen-inch slabs of stone replaced the four-inch white builders tile that was in the house when the family arrived. What makes it work, says Faye, is its inconsistency.

"It’s a natural material with light spots and dark spots," she said, which feels real in an earthy sort of way that the old floor – made up of identical squares – did not. "When people walk into my home now, they always comment on how warm it is," she said. "They have to be noticing the floor. Nobody ever said that before." Quarried in Turkey near the ancient Roman ruins at Ephesus, the mostly beige travertine is streaked with rust. The colors come from the color of the ancient seashells from which the stone is formed.

Dust bunnies and crumbs seem to get lost in the color variations, which is not a minor blessing. Stuart and Faye’s blended family includes six children – her three boys; his three girls – and two dogs. "With white tile, it used to be sweep-and-mop all the time," said Faye.

Among affluent, Main Line clients with designer budgets, large tiles have become virtually standard, said Nelson. One clear advantage is that their fewer grout lines translate visually as less "going on." That, in turn, makes a room feel larger.

Another trick: more tile in more rooms. In many homes, said Nelson, tile has moved spread from the kitchen and bath and is now pushing hardwood out of areas such as the dining and family room.

"There is also a trend of covering the entire room with tile," he said. "Usually, it’s the bathroom, but we’ve tiled a coffered ceiling in a dining room."

Sharing the spotlight with stone – often in the same floor or wall – is a new trend: cold, artificial glass and metal. According to Damien Ciccotta, manager of Philadelphia’s Volpe Tile, metal borders and insets have virtually eclipsed the pastoral fruit-and-vegetable basket depictions once standard in kitchen backsplashes and fireplace surrounds.

"In the kitchen, lots of people are doing stainless steel refrigerators and ranges," said Ciccotta. "A metallic inset in stone really pulls out the appliances."

The new taste for glass is a classic upscale phenomenon – that is to say, imported. "It’s bigger in New York and California than it is here," said Nelson, noting that Philadelphia still leans toward the traditional. "But our customers travel and see these things, then come home and want them, too."

Mostly, glass is an accent. However, it is available in sizes up to a square foot. Nelson done entire floors in glass. (Good news: It is available with a non-skid surface.) At Charles Tiles, Manayunk, one client did a shower in light, bottle-green glass tile, with floors and counters in a complementary green marble.

"For us, glass is a top seller," said Marsha Crane, co-owner. "It has a real contemporary look to it. And because it’s so new, people really notice it." Also new: mosaics that resemble zebra stripes, leopard prints and burberry plaid.

And if none of that is enough, there are studios that will cook you some tile while you wait. At Charles Tiles, which specializes in handmade and custom tile, top sellers include the metal-and-glass sandwiches of California artist Anna Cabo (www.annacabo.com).

"What she does is put a sheet of metal between two layers of glass," explained Crane. "When it is fired in the kiln, the glass melts together and creates intense color variations in the metal – everything from intense reds to soft oranges." Cabo’s tiles have been used on the façade of the Spago restaurant (where the stars dine) in Beverly Hills and on bus stops in Santa Monica.

Dramatic, yes, but more homeowners are ignoring their resale fears. "That used to scare most people into going neutral," said Crane. "Now, more than half of our clients say they’re ready to be daring."

Home & Design / November-December 2004

Mark E. Dixon