Their best-known customer resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but their most frequent assignment is to adorn the floor of a private aircraft with original designs that add to the high-end experience of the flight.
Cascade Township-based Scott Group Custom Carpets is in the very specialized business of designing and manufacturing custom-designed, high-end carpets for equally high-end clientele. And yes, that includes the White House, which ordered a carpet for the Oval Office that was used during the Clinton Administration, as well as two for the State Dining Room, both of which are still in service.
The Scott Group process for transforming yards of yarn into an exquisite carpet originates in much the same way as many pieces of fine art or even an industrial product concept. It starts with a CAD concept, created by one of 14 full-time designers, and eventually finds its way to stitching, sheering and affixing.
“Part of the discipline that’s created within the design studio is to create not only new and innovative product and innovative design, but designs that transcend time,” says Michael Ruggeri, CEO of Scott Group. “Most of what we produce is very transcendent in nature. They are designs that are going to be very long-lasting, and carpets that are going to be very long-lasting from a performance standpoint and a design standpoint.”
Designers Laura Martin and Jennifer Kirchgessner, who have worked at Scott Group for 12 and seven years respectively, confirm that the design atmosphere is much like that of an interior design or artistic design shop — save for the massive manufacturing space, of course.
“I answered an ad in the paper that said they were looking for an artist who had, ideally, CAD experience,” Martin says. “When I started asking around, one of my lab partners said, ‘I have a contact sheet of what they do right here.’ I looked at it and thought, oh my God, that is so exciting. I really want to do this.”
Most of Scott Group’s business is secured via relationships with interior designers, who work with high-end homeowners, businesses wanting to put a unique stamp on a room, lobby or other area – and yes, sometimes presidents.
A tour of Scott Group’s facility reveals a great deal about its customers. More than 50 percent of its overall business at present is the design and production of custom carpets for private aircraft, which explains why so many of the pieces on display are long and narrow.
That particular market focus is a combination of designer interest in the segment and relationships with interior designers who work closely with aircraft manufacturers. Prominent among Scott Group’s photographic depictions of the company’s work are private and corporate jets with luxurious seating and hard-to-miss, exquisite, detailed design on a multi-colored carpet that adorns the floor.
The aircraft photos are mixed, though, with images of high-end homes and corporate facilities — each illustrating the carpet designer’s sense of what would work with the room. Often, the design concept has to come from little more than the interior designer’s input as to what the room or area will contain, as well as any information that can be shared about lighting and so forth.
Once the design is completed via the CAD process, it is transferred onto large paper with perforations to represent the print of the design, then transferred through those perforations to the fabric that will serve as the base of the carpet. This is done by hand, with employees spreading the ink across the fabric.
After the fabric is embedded with the design, an employee armed with a yarn-stitching gun has the task of applying the yarn — which is made from high-end material such as silk and cashmere and stocked in large quantities in many colors and shades — precisely to fit the design pattern. Nothing guarantees accuracy aside from the employee’s own steady hand, and Scott Group has to have a good sense of who can work best with a given design, because the biggest cost associated with any job is labor.
“If we have some smaller jobs, we can make them learning experiences,” Martin said. “But if it’s a large and particularly challenging job, we know we have to put our top people on it because it has to be right.”
High-end carpet design is priced by supply and demand just like anything else. Scott Group can’t tack on additional charges because it used more labor time than it expected, and the people who buy these custom-designed products have an idea in mind of what they’re willing to pay. That process starts with a design process that tries to best connect with what will turn the customer on.
“We’re tremendously customer-focused, and I think we’re problem solvers,” Kirchgessner said. “Our goal is to find a solution for our customers so we bring some options to the table based on our knowledge of our product.”
According to Ruggeri, Scott Group designers try to stay current on design trends without falling into ruts that might prevent them from coming up with something original and interesting.
“Jen studies the various things that influence design, and from that distills the information down and gets it to Laura and the rest of the design team,” Ruggeri said. “And we create leading-edge samples. So, much like the fashion industry, we’re creating new designs for the marketplace. In some cases, they’re taking to interior designers to whet their appetite or the appetite of the customers, and we continually feed the front end of the business.”
On other occasions, though, interior designers may call Scott Group directly to suggest a concept and being the process of having them turn it into reality.
“Designers begin to recognize what we’re capable of,” Ruggeri said.
Ruggeri, who joined the company in 1979 and advanced to become its president, bought the company along with several family members in 1995 from the estate of original owner Steve Salinger, who founded the company in 1969. Today, Scott Group has 180 employees and is constantly on the lookout for the next carpet design challenge.
But unlike many companies who design custom products, Scott Group’s team rarely gets to see its work in its final application. A rare exception occurred recently when the designer who worked on the White House’s State Dining Room carpet got to visit the White House to see the result of her work.
“That was pretty cool for her,” Martin said.
One would think.
Dan Calabrese is the co-founder and editor in chief of North Star Writers Group and previously owned a West Michigan public relations firm by the same name. He has written for the Macomb Daily, the Royal Oak Daily Tribune, the Journal Newspapers in Wayne County and the Grand Rapids Business Journal. He previously wrote for Rapid Growth about community banking leader Laurie Beard.
Photos:
The State Dining Room at The White House (courtesy photo)Michael RuggeriDesigners Jennifer Kirchgessner and Laura MartinLarge carpets are handmade/woven by very skilled workers in Grand RapidsThe Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas (courtesy photo)Photographs by Brian Kelly (except as noted) - All Rights ReservedBrian Kelly is a commercial photographer, filmmaker and managing photographer for Rapid Growth. He would like to own a mansion and a yacht (or private plane) featuring Scott Group carpets.You can find Brian's blog here.