Cutting-edge Designers

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“From there it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” said Annie. First they assembled the myriad pieces face-up on numbered paper diagrams. Then the colors were approved, and any necessary adjustments made. Finally, the entire “puzzle” was sub-assembled into hundreds of two- to three-foot pieces and shipped off to France, where it would be installed according to specific instructions by flooring experts. The entire process took about three years in total and was executed by about a dozen of the company’s 35 employees.

“We’re all pretty relieved,” says Annie with a smile. “It’s our most detailed job so far.”

Apparently, the design-approval process alone took a year and a half--incredibly lengthy by Creative Edge standards. (By contrast, the crew recently churned out all of the public-area floors for the new Four Seasons hotel in Westlake, California, in about six months.)

For Annie, the design process was the most enjoyable aspect of the experience.

“The most fun part for me was working with the monochromatic yet colorful palette,” she said. “The customer wanted a kind of antique look. It’s a very old home so we used very variegated stones, ones that in other projects wouldn’t be appropriate because they have so many color differences in one tile.”

Creative Edge has been in business since the mid-80s, when entrepreneur (and now company president) Jim Belilove and artist Harri Aalto purchased Creative Glassworks, a then-struggling waterjet machinery company.

“When they first started the company,” recalls Annie, “they always joked that if they pulled up in the morning and they could hear the machines running, it was a good day. That’s how archaic the technology was at the time.”

Together, Belilove and Aalto set about refining their equipment and pioneering the use of waterjet cutters in the field of decorative architecture. Along the way, master installer and contractor Robert Sawyer joined the team in sales and technical service, along with Annie and her mother Catherine in layout and design.

Today, the company enjoys booming business at a relatively sane pace. “We’re only ever working on a dozen or so projects at a time,” says Annie. “It’s because the work is very in-depth, very custom.”

Creative Edge also has a powerful Internet presence, and one that generates many project leads, including the recent Parisian flooring contract.

Yet in the face of widespread success, Creative Edge remains firmly planted in Iowa. “Being in Iowa is nice because we can service both coasts equally well,” says Annie. “Also, Iowa has a really strong workforce and we have people who have been with us since the beginning. They really know their work and have gotten to the point where they’ve become true artisans.”