La Lune Collection
930 E. Burleigh St., Milwaukee
INDUSTRY: Rustic furniture
EMPLOYEES: About 30
lalunecollection.com
When Cathy and Mario Costantini first decided to start their own business in 1978, they were truly starting from scratch.
“I had nothing,” said Mario. “No business plan, no money, nothing.”
After securing a $50,000 line of credit through a bit of luck, the Costantinis opened an interior design company on Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee, later pivoting to making their own furniture.
The Costantinis were fond of more contemporary pieces of furniture, but they had difficulty making enough money to sustain that line of work.
They ended up pivoting to rustic furniture after they received an inquiry from a customer who came to their Wisconsin Avenue store to ask if they did any work for restaurants. That customer was looking for pieces to fit into his rustic-themed restaurants in Chicago.
“I went to the Golda Meir Library at UWM and looked up everything rustic,” said Mario. “Just anything I could find. I found some drawings of old rustic furniture that was created by immigrants. I thought it was so cool to take an unrefined branch of a tree and make furniture.”
The first rustic pieces of furniture the Costantinis designed were made from willow trees. That initial order was in the range of 200 to 300 items. The pieces were a hit, Mario said, and the couple received an influx of business inquiries.
That’s when they realized they had tapped into a new market. In 1979, La Lune Collection was officially formed. One of their first customers was Ralph Lauren, who ordered several custom pieces for his home in New York.
After continually growing their business for several years, the couple bought their 25,000-square-foot Burleigh Street facility in 1985. La Lune was a catalyst that helped transform its section of Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood from troubled to desirable.
Today, the business produces about 1,000 pieces of furniture a month. About a third of those pieces are for commercial spaces, while the remaining two-thirds are for homes.
“We deal primarily with the interior design industry and one of our biggest markets is the mountain states,” said Mario. “People designing mountain homes in Wyoming or Colorado, they come to us.”
La Lune primarily uses wood from poplar and willow trees. Poplar is an invasive species in the northern part of Wisconsin. The Costantinis are often able to cut down poplar trees free of cost because most landowners view their removal as a favor, Mario said.
La Lune sources its wood within a 100-mile perimeter of Crandon, Wisconsin.
“We bend the wood when it’s freshly cut and we use heat and pressure and put it in a form,” said Mario. “Then we leave it in a kiln for several weeks to help it retain its shape.”
Each of La Lune’s 600 standard pieces of furniture have a hand-drawn rendering, complete with specifications. While no two pieces are exactly alike, there also isn’t huge variation between similar items.
Each piece of furniture starts in the frame department, where workers use the pre-drawn renderings to build out the needed wooden frames. From there, the frames move on to the upholstery department, where they’re stuffed with locally sourced foam and covered in the desired fabrics. The final stages include stops at the finishing and shipping departments.
The furniture requires minimal maintenance once it reaches its destination. Customers only need to brush the wood with a special oil to prevent it from cracking and peeling.
Custom work is what sustains La Lune, something that sets the company apart from other furniture manufacturers. A higher margin for error means most companies don’t care to do custom work, Mario explained. About half of La Lune’s business is custom orders.
“It’s a way that we can compete with manufacturers in other parts of the world,” he said. “They can only get it from us, so price is a very secondary concern.”
