Southern California Enterprise : Fired Up : Pottery Firm Thrives Despite Quake, Foreign Competition

Clambering over earthquake rubble in his West Los Angeles pottery factory, Laurie Gates searched for more disaster.

Ahead in the darkness on Jan. 17 sat dozens of gold-emblazoned rabbit cookie jars that were scheduled to be packed that very morning for shipment to the Bloomingdale’s spring catalogue operation.

And so it was a sweet sight when Gates rounded the last corner to find the first rays of morning glinting through a skylight onto unscathed 24-karat gold: Not one rabbit had toppled over, and the $8,000 order was saved.

“I took it as a good sign,” Gates said, despite the $200,000 in lost inventory, equipment and other damage caused by the Northridge earthquake. “It was a good day for bunnies.”

It has been a good two years all around for Gates’ company, Los Angeles Pottery, which produces hand-painted ceramic bake ware, dinnerware, serving pieces, tile, salt-and-pepper shakers and lots and lots of cookie jars in little more than 18,000 square feet of jam-packed space.

In its short life, Los Angeles Pottery has survived earthquake, fire, and recession as well as low-cost foreign competition. It is one of the few remaining domestic firms in this sort of labor-intensive business.

Reviving the name of a long-defunct maker of early California ceramics, Gates has built a thriving company from the ruins of his previous employer, a dish manufacturer on the same site that fell victim to the changing marketplace. Los Angeles Pottery’s sales reached nearly $3 million in 1993, more than triple the first year’s total. Employment has climbed past 60.

Gates credits the designs of his hand-painted wares--25 patterns and growing--coupled with an increasing interest by major retailers in buying from domestic sources for quicker turnaround of orders and less need for tying up capital waiting for container loads of dishes to arrive from overseas.

But there’s something more at work here than attractive, pricey dishes: Behind it all is an entrepreneur who is not afraid to take some very big chances.

In 1984, Gates chucked a comfortable life ranching and farming on 2,000 acres in Alberta, Canada, and running a few small businesses on the side, to move to Los Angeles with his 11-year-old son. Gates said he was looking for a change and some new business opportunities, and he liked the zest for life Los Angeles was showing in that optimistic Olympic year.

“It was a turning point in my life,” said Gates, now 43.

Gates launched a new career as a manufacturers’ representative for a large gift company, collaborating with clients on design ideas. After five years, Gates was asked to help straighten out a struggling dish manufacturer called Designcraft. But the company had too few designs to keep its products selling briskly, he said. In early 1992, Gates, by then general manager, was told to shut the firm down.

Instead, he took another chance and bought it with $435,000 in cash--an investment recouped by the end of the year. Los Angeles Pottery remains debt-free, Gates said.

“Growing up on the prairies on Canada, I never really believed in debt,” he said, shrugging.

The recession was a scary time to launch a new venture, Gates acknowledged. But languishing retailers were desperately looking for products that would sell quickly, he said.

“I had a good reputation for sales and for selling lines that moved well for retailers, and they were open to me,” Gates said. “The associations I had made from years of sales and from working (at Designcraft) kind of all came together.”

There have been challenges. The Northridge earthquake was a hard blow, but it closed Los Angeles Pottery for only three days, Gates said. A still unsolved arson fire last year slowed the firm down for only a few hours, he said.

Gates found a receptive market for his designs, which range from ethnic to modern to country, and the quick turnaround he promised. Merchandise can be made and shipped in less than four weeks--in an emergency, within days--compared to three to six months for an overseas orders, he said.

Los Angeles Pottery’s wares have found their way to such retailers as Macy’s, Williams-Sonoma, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Harrods and even the new Flintstones store opening Memorial Day weekend at CityWalk. Gates has designed three fossil-themed dish lines for the store.

The stuff isn’t cheap: A hand-painted dinner plate retails for under $20 and, when fired with gold or platinum, plates sell for close to $50. A snowman cookie jar wearing a gold-painted tuxedo was popular last Christmas for between $90 and $100, Gates said.

All the work is done in-house, including mixing the clay, making the molds, hand-painting the products and firing the goods. Each piece is handled again and again in a process that takes more than 30 steps.

It is an activity seldom seen these days in Southern California, which was once home to a thriving ceramics industry. Metlox Potteries and Franciscan Ceramics are two of the better known manufacturers to have closed their factories in the last decade.

“The competition is really tough,” Gates said. “There are hundreds of factories in Italy that are hand-painting, and they can sell at cheaper prices.”

But Gates insists that domestic manufacturers can deliver a level of service unmatched by foreign competitors. Major retailers are beginning to get the message, he said.

Even one small client praised the firm’s flexibility. When Livingstone’s, a Beverly Hills gift shop, asked Gates to change the color of the fruit painted on one dish line, he did it, said buyer Sam Ouldhouse.

“There are two ways of doing business,” Ouldhouse said. “There is, ‘This is what the business is,’ and there is, ‘How can I help you?’ They’re more ‘How can I help you?’ ”