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At Lan Su Chinese
Garden in Portland
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Dear clients, friends, and colleagues,
We have some personal news we'd like to share with you. We've reached the decision that we need to make the move back to the East coast to be closer to our families on a regular basis - specifically our aging parents.
We're still working out the logistics of rebuilding Century Arts back East, but we intend to retain business here, and to maintain our business relationships here. We have been, and are, very lucky to have loyal clients and great friends in Portland and the Pacific Northwest, which will make it easier for us to be successful in this evolution of how we work.
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Our in-home showroom: The White Rose |
While we are sad to leave our house and our community in Portland, we're looking forward to spending more time with our families. We're also excited about seeking new opportunities for our business and our personal lives. We've been considering our options and making plans to accommodate our parents' needs for a while, and had expected to make a move sometime in 2017. However, earlier this year a number of factors aligned that made us realize the time is now. In a matter of a few weeks, our lives moved into fast forward, and now it's already time for our house to go on the market.
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View of our new town: The foothills of the mountains along the Allegheny river.
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While we need to be closer to our families, we also need to be in a location where we already have some roots and opportunities for our art and design business. We've chosen to relocate to a small town in Western Pennsylvania that offers a reasonable drive to our parents, is close to the Roycroft campus, and is close to the art and preservation markets in Buffalo, Pittsburg, Erie, and Cleveland.
We want our clients in Portland, the Pacific Northwest, and California, who are accustomed to seeing us regularly, to know that we are still dedicated to your projects and we're committed to business here. We do expect some downtime while our studio is in transition, but we've been planning for that, and we expect all current projects to stay on schedule. We customarily do design and consultation projects remotely for clients across the country, and for ongoing and new projects here in the Northwest, we're confident in our ability to manage your projects using our established model. We also plan to make the necessary visits required for our work here. Currently, we have several ongoing projects that require our onsite presence, and we'll be building in time for onsite consultations and other things you may need from us during those trips.
We really appreciate all of the support and encouragement that we've received from all of you who have already heard our news. It's been extremely encouraging and heartwarming to hear many of you say "you will not regret the decision to be near your families at this time in your life."
Thank you to our colleagues, friends and clients who have already offered us meeting space, and a place to stay when we are in town; your hospitality and support means the world to us.
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Our 1913 Portland home: The Hamilton House,
designed by George Eastman
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We have loved our 15 years in Portland, and have been happy to be the stewards of our 1913 George Eastman designed home. We hope the next family that lives in our home will preserve the work we have done, and give the home new life in the areas that we never had the chance to work on.
We've made many lifelong friends here and we treasure all of you who have helped us build our business together. Although we will very much miss our regular interaction with all of you in our community here in Portland, we are excited about the prospect of new opportunities, having quality time with our families, and adventures with East coast friends. Of course moving away will make our return visits to our Portland community all the more significant.
Thank you for your support and understanding as we make this necessary transition. If you are interested in keeping up to date on the details of our progress and cross country drive, follow our business page on
facebook. We'll also make occasional updates in our newsletter and we'll let you know when our new studio space is up and running.
We close with a thank you to our East coast network who have welcomed us with open arms, and are working diligently to help us make new connections in their communities.
