It had been decades since the visitor had seen the rose-colored, glass chandelier that hung regally in the long hallway of her great-aunt’s home. But a visit to Jim Neumann’s River North showroom brought back the fond childhood memories attached to that fixture with a clarity and brilliance to rival the hundreds of sparkling chandeliers overhead.
One of them, a Venetian-glass chandelier, could have passed for the great-aunt’s. But, in actuality, it was a reproduction of a 16th Century fixture that Neumann had made for New Metal Crafts, the 60-year-old firm he now runs.
Memory, history and story, along with a solid reputation for quality work and unique designs, have a great deal to do with Neumann’s business.
To find rare vintage and antique finds, Neumann goes on several European buying trips a year to sort through lighting fixtures that have intriguing pasts or are part of somebody’s special memories.
“There’s a real interest now in unique home furnishings and (an) understanding that unique can be antique–totally individual and rare,” he says of the trend toward older design that started to take hold in the ’80s. “You hear a lot of stories from people about old lighting fixtures you find in this business. Some stories you get third-hand, but sometimes you’re lucky to get it as close to first-hand as you can, and that makes the difference.”
One such story led him to iron and copper wall sconces that were once in the homes of the Lumiere brothers, pioneers in cinema. The two brothers had homes facing each other in Lyon, France.
Neumann found the sconces by chance on a recent visit to Lyon after he met someone whose late father had been an antique dealer and liquidator. The sconces were left over from the Lumiere estate sale, and Neumann found them in a secluded area in the father’s warehouse. Neumann says another sconce from the Lumiere brothers’ homes is in the Lumiere Museum of Cinema in Lyon.
He has not restored the sconces. Restoration work is usually done after the design is sold.
All fabricating, restoring and refinishing is done by 5 to 10 craftspeople at New Metal Craft’s five-floor workshop and warehouse on North Elston Avenue.
The big fix
Until these antique and vintage pieces reach the workshop, they engulf a raw, gritty warehouse space that sits atop three floors of New Metal Crafts’ sparkling showroom space. In this pre-restoration triage, age-worn light fixtures hang overhead, wall sconces and incomplete pieces lie on long wooden tables and bare-wood shelves.
Burr Ridge designer Kay McCarthy of Traylor-McCarthy Interiors carefully examines the worn fixtures for a client who is redoing a townhome.
People in the design industry know they can find just about anything they’re looking for at New Metal Crafts and that lighting from there comes with quality workmanship, says McCarthy, who has worked with the company for almost 15 years. “Designers looking for unique lighting fixtures find them here,” she adds.
If it’s sconces they’re looking for, they head to the third floor. A limited number of contemporary designs, antique and vintage reproductions, and a fabulous chandelier gallery, which is a distant cousin to the Palace de Versailles’ gallery of mirror and lights, can be found on the second floor.
The second-floor gallery area has a room with midnight blue felt fabric covering the walls with matching draperies and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. With all the lights aglow, there appears to be a constellation of twinkling lights.
The basement, which is being redone, is where large lighting fixtures can be found for special projects.
“Jim has a great eye,” says Roberta Perlman, a Glencoe-based designer who has worked with Neumann for at least a dozen years. “One of his first loves is old fixtures. We’ve combined his crystal sconces with recessed lighting in the ceiling, and used old sconces in a contemporary bathroom. It works out well for the kinds of jobs we do because what we do is juxtapose old with new.”
A symphony of lights
Although the New Metal Crafts name and lighting designs are known from here to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia (where 34 8- to 16-foot-diameter chandeliers were recently installed in the A.L. Attes Hotels and Leylaty Ballrooms), Neumann is especially delighted about the company making its mark in Chicago’s worlds of art, music and architecture.
Last year, New Metal Crafts completed special lighting design projects at Symphony Center and the William B. and Katherine Graham Room at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It is currently working on the lighting design renovation at the Oriental Theatre. About 40 percent of New Metal Crafts’ business is special lighting design projects like these.
“Being part of the Chicago projects is wonderful for me,” says Neumann, who, in 1960, joined the business his father, Armin, started 60 years ago. “It makes me feel part of the great history of Chicago architecture.”
The Symphony Center project also enabled Neumann to embrace two of his loves: music and lighting design. The hanging brass fixtures are shaped like rings that resemble musical staffs, the lights between the rings resemble musical notes.
Although Neumann studied chemistry in college, his father helped him and his younger brother, John, and sister, Nancy Nabor, develop a love of art at an early age.
“My father wanted me to be interested in the business, but most importantly he wanted me to be interested in art and craftsmanship,” says the 61-year-old Neumann. “For him, it was something that would always be necessary in life.”
As a boy, Neumann took art classes for children at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology.
“I remember the drafting room where my father had a very disciplined designer. I remember the designer had decorative drawings, and I remember trying to copy that. This is my first clear memory of visiting my father’s business. I was 6 or 7 years old.”
Later, his mother, Piri, also helped Neumann develop a discerning eye, teaching by example as she would edit selections for the family business.
But by his teen years, his passion for art had jazz riffs.
His jazz collection, which he has amassed over 46 years, now has about 150,000 LPs and 78s. He also owns rare books and magazines on jazz dating to the ’20s, posters, photographs, autographs–and his own jazz recording label (co-owned with his wife, Susan) called Beehive.
“Rare records and rare lighting fixtures are somehow tied together for me,” says Neumann. “I really think of myself as an archivist for both. For me, art and music are so related. Really, when I go on my buying trips, it’s sometimes hard for people to know if I’m coming for lighting or jazz.
“The beginning of jazz relates to Deco and the Arts and Craft period. There is a flow there between art and music. There was even change in modern fixtures as we felt ourselves getting more modern. The whole thing flows with the music.”
New Metals Crafts showroom is at 812 N. Wells St. Prices range from $25 for glass wall fixtures to $100,000 for top-of-the-line custom designs and antiques. Moderate-priced dining fixtures are $50 to $200.
