Artisans: Spotlighting Makers of Handcrafted Good : Cast in Stone : Between Molded Rock and Classy Marble Is a Wide Range of Attractive, Durable Materials

Using stone in architecture and interior design probably goes back to, well, the Stone Age. Uncountable homes, castles, temples, churches, building facades, pillars, fireplaces, even idols and altars, have been fashioned from the rock-solid substance.

In the ‘90s design market, stone in all its forms is making a strong comeback.

“It might take 250 million years to produce this piece of marble used for this form, so its history is breathtaking and people respond to that,” says Ralph Tarzian, a Laguna Beach sculptor who works almost exclusively in stone.

“When people see a sleek granite building or wall, they inevitably reach to touch it. Have you ever seen someone go up and touch a glass windowpane? There’s something innately compelling about stonework. Always has been.”

“There’s a certain simplicity to stone that people love,” says Sheldon Harte of the Harte-Brownlee & Associates interior design firm in Newport Beach. “It has a timeless appeal. Colors don’t change, patterns don’t change, textures don’t change, palettes don’t change. And with the expense of design work these days, people are after quality and durability. Stone will last forever--certainly as long as you are living in the home.”

Of the scores of stone materials taken from the earth, the most popular for design work are granite, marble, limestone, fossil stone, cantera, slate and Castestone Limestone has always been a favorite of architects and interior designers. It has a soft grayish tone rather than the polished look that some marbles and granites have. It is often used to face houses and to serve as flooring or countertops.

“I like the limestone look primarily because the colors are relatively smooth and consistent,” says Linda Quinn of Quinn’s Creations interior design firm in Costa Mesa. “With marble, each slab used can be a different shade and vein. Limestone is much more evenly toned. And it has a beautiful feel to it. Clients are always happy with the results.”

Fossil stone (sometimes called “shell stone”) is characterized by the impressions of small animals, shells, insects and other bits and pieces that have dented and/or been embedded in the rock.

“Fossil stone is very intriguing,” says Quinn, who created a fossil stone coffee table for the home of Peter V. and Ginny Ueberroth of Laguna Beach. “You can actually see the results of nature and time.”

The material, quarried primarily in New Mexico and Texas, is being used increasingly in furniture design.

Cantera is a ginger-colored stone embedded with indigenous rocks--usually in grays, off-whites and tans. It is often used in archways, windows, fireplaces, pillars and doors, and outdoor fountains in buildings whose styles are Mexican, Italian or Spanish.

The ever-dramatic granite has has long been associated with the sleek Art Deco look. The stone, often in dark green or in black speckled with gray, is still used extensively on floors and as kitchen and bathroom counters.

“The reason I chose granite is that the client wanted a sophisticated palette for the house,” Harte said of a bathroom project. “And black granite is neutral, cool and sleek. Not everyone will be happy in a granite environment, but one can warm it up with background textures and accessories. And besides its beauty, it has a lot of pluses in maintainance: it’s hard, durable, doesn’t stain; it’s easy to clean and wipe off, and there’s no grouting to change” as tile would require.

Slate, although it has a decidedly cool look, has more warmth than pure granite. It comes in a multitude of shades in the gray, gray-green and taupe families. It is often found on walkways, pools, floors and fireplaces.

There are all varieties of Castestone, a material fashioned from ground-up rock. It is extremely popular among designers because, unlike natural formed stone, one can dictate its color, texture and shape. It’s used for tabletops, fireplaces, countertops, and can also be cast into molds and fashioned into free-form shapes. “Castestone has the feel of real stone, but you are getting exactly what you want in all the specifics,” says Quinn.

Of all the varieties, however, marble is the one most associated with elegance.

Although marble can be found in California and elsewhere, designers agree that the most beautiful is found in Italy. And the Italians know it. “In Italy marble is all over the place,” Tarzian says. “Just like sand on our beaches.”

Statuary Italian marble--that is, a hard variety often used to make statues--from Carrara, Italy, is most sculptors’ preferred stone. California marble chips too easily, they say. It’s fine for roofs or flower beds, though.

Pietrasanta (which means “holy stone”) lays claim to the quarries with the most brilliantly colored marbles in the world, says Tarzian, who travels to Italy to pick the stone he uses.

“Italy has hundreds of colors of marble,” Tarzian says.

“You can tell a lot about where a stone comes from by its color. There’s a quarry outside of Rome where travertine is beige. In Afghanistan, it’s dark green. In South America, it comes in variations of pinks.

He has created a statue of “Lady Godiva” in pink Portuguese marble, “Adam and Eve” in dark-beige marble, and a robust free-form female figure in alabaster white.

“Stone is made up of minerals in the earth. And different minerals, combined with the different pressures from the earth, heat from the volcanoes and amount of time the stone has been heated and pressed, make for the beautiful rainbow of colors in the marbles. It’s God’s touch.”