Chip Chic

It’s no wonder that the colorful mosaic tables crafted by artisan Xavier Llongueras look as though they were plucked from a Mediterranean villa. “I’m inspired by the light here; it’s very close to that of the country where I grew up,” says 31-year-old Llongueras, who was born in France and spent much of his childhood in the Catalonia region of Spain. “I watched my father--he was a builder--work in marble and stone, and I was especially influenced by the designs of Gaudi and the Greco-Roman mosaics of Ampurias Bravas [in Spain].”

When Llongueras moved to L.A. eight years ago to design mosaics, he first did custom projects, including a frolicking dolphin, horse and wolf on the bathroom floor of a Zuma Beach house and a graphic sunburst on a Malibu patio. His mosaics also grace the Korakia Pensione swimming pool in Palm Springs, and now he is restoring the mosaic fireplace at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis-Brown House. About a year ago, Llongueras and partner Elizabeth Warner created Catalonia Collections, a line of hand-forged wrought-iron bases with inlaid tabletops, available at Maison et Cafe in L.A. These mosaics consist of antique hand-painted Moroccan tiles or combinations of hand-cut tesserae of marble, broken ceramics and reproduction Byzantine glass.

Llongueras takes two or three days to complete each table. He sketches the design on paper, then arranges the mosaic chips in grout on the iron frame. Once the design is in place, he surrounds the chips with cement. After the cement has dried, he cleans and sands the surface and applies a tinted sealant for a time-worn patina. While Llongueras likes the idea that each table resembles a family heirloom, he’s already working on a new line for spring, to be sold at Portico Bed & Bath in New York City. “A simple all-white mosaic with maybe silver legs,” he says of one possible design. “The customers are wanting modern.”