Focus Feature: Squared Away

The 20,000-square-foot Unique Tile showroom and warehouse is an interior designer’s dream – literally.

The brainchild of Missouri State University interior design graduate Melissa Turpin, the 26-year-old company carries thousands of varieties of floor and wall tile from the typical glass and ceramic to porcelain, cement, natural stone and marble. Turpin says the Nixa-based business is a far cry from the idea she concepted in her garage.

“I began as an interior designer and quickly realized I found tile more entertaining than anything else,” she says. “My parents were self-employed so I grew up in that lifestyle. I knew the risks. I knew I wanted to own my own business and tile was my future.”

Turpin knew she needed to stand out from big-box stores and other tile dealers to make a name for herself in the industry, so she put her design degree to work.

Along with husband and company Vice President Paul Mudd, Turpin travels to Modena, Italy, once a year to stay ahead of the design curve. The famed Capital of Engines, home to the headquarters of sports car manufactures Ferrari, Maserati, De Tomaso and Pagani, is also home to the Cercaie tile tradeshow.

“What could be better than traveling to  Italy, wining and dining and looking at tile?” she says. “I get all the new products and styles before they hit the states.”

Mudd says many of the shop’s 45 standard stock patterns are sourced from Italy, but they might be manufactured in the United States.

“Companies import Italian clay rather than the finished tiles,” he says. “It’s cheaper to manufacture them here than ship them.”

This unique blend of standard and forward-thinking tile designs has led to recognition on a national scale.

Turpin counts Bass Pro Shops, John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts and Hard Rock Cafe among her big-name clients. Locally, Unique Tile’s product can be seen in Springfield’s Cantina Laredo, the Welk Resort, Prime Inc.’s spa and salon, Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing and area convenience stores.

“We are working on numerous Bass Pro stores right now and have worked on locations nationwide,” says Turpin, noting designers like the look of her reclaimed wood tile for areas such as the Uncle Buck’s FishBowl restaurants. “We also have a black metallic tile going in at Hard Rock Cafe Denver that just fits the theme of that place perfectly.”

Turpin says her longest-running and biggest client during the years has been JQH Hotels. Juli Russell, principal of Juli Russell Interior Design Group LLC, estimates she and Turpin have worked on at least 40 JQH hotels together.

“Melissa has a good product offering and is very competitive on a national basis,” she says. “She always has the most innovative products in the industry.”

A 14-year employee of JQH Hotels and its former in-house interior designer, Russell says the late John Q. Hammons was a help in starting her own design firm six years ago, but she still handles all of JQH Hotels’ interior design work.

“Melissa and I have worked on his entire hotel portfolio for the past 20 years together,” Russell says, noting she couldn’t begin to pinpoint a dollar amount. “Right now, we are working on renovations to University Plaza, but I think my favorite was Chateau on the Lake. We had fun with all the tile work in the spa areas.”

The Chateau on the Lake Resort Spa & Convention Center in Branson is home to another of Turpin’s products: granite. An accredited member of the Marble Institute of America, The Stone Gallery at Unique Tile fabricates and installs granite countertops for commercial and residential use, including the many bars, bathroom vanities and guest counters at the Chateau, which was built in 1997 for $62 million.

Sourced primarily from Brazil and India, the 50-square-foot granite slabs, which weigh more than 1,100 pounds, are transported via forklift to the shop’s in-house granite cutting facility.

“Granite is one of the hardest materials in the world, so you have to get something even harder to cut it,” Turpin says of the diamond-edge cutting blade. “I always joke I’ve got a lot of diamonds, but I can’t wear any of them.”

Turpin says The Stone Gallery division is a hit with local high-end contractors, such as Ramsey Building Co. LLC,  Doug Pitts Construction LLC and Keystone Building and Design LLC.

“As the economy shifted, so did our business. We were doing less hotels and more residential,” Turpin says, noting her primary residential distribution area includes Missouri, Arkansas and some parts of Kansas. “No matter the economy, there is always someone out there building a big house.”

Unique Tile brought in $1.7 million in 2013 revenue, up 6 percent from 2012. While the company is down from a high in 2008, Turpin says Unique Tile has increased revenue about 10 percent each year between 2010 and 2012.

“Life is good,” Turpin says, sitting at her custom fabricated granite desk dwarfed by stacks of interior design books and tile samples.

As Kitt the black cat wanders by to claim his bed on Turpin’s desk corner, she flips through sample catalogs pointing out this year’s trending color schemes – grays and metallics.

“Gray is huge right now,” she says. “Silver and gold metallic are the next big thing. The silver plays into that gray look, but the gold adds a pop of pizzazz.”

Sold per square foot, Turpin says tile prices range from $2.50 to her 18-carat gold mosaic tile that sells for around $270 per square foot, depending on the price of gold that day.

“That one can really add up quickly,” she says.

Turpin didn’t completely abandon her other interior design interests, opening the Resource Room adjacent to Unique Tile in 2000.

A wholesale showroom for interior designers, Turpin’s second venture employs two and displays design ideas for the entire house, including outdoor patios.

“The Resource Room is more of a hobby and it’s nice to keep my creative ideas flowing,” she says. “But tile is where my heart is.”[[In-content Ad]]