Cane Mutineers Turn to Walking-Stick Artisan
At the House of Canes and Walking Sticks, Mark Fontaine still makes ‘em one at a time--20,000 canes so far.
His is a craft that experts think will explode when 76 million aging but still vain baby boomers insist on accommodating their infirmities in style.
People such as Alma Curry, 53, of Sikeston, Mo., who found that her pair of Fontaine canes--one hand-painted, one clear Lucite--made it easier to cope with the effects of post-polio syndrome.
“I felt I deserved a nice cane since it is a part of me, just like the clothes I wear,” she said. “I have more than one to fit my dressy or not-so-dressy days.”
And people such as Craig Mathews of Washington, D.C., who has used what he terms “a portable handrail” since 1986.
“Sure, for practicality, the walk aids that one finds in the drugstore will well suit the requirements, especially if they are temporary,” the 56-year-old said.
“But do you really want to be stuck with one of those clunkers for the rest of your life? You wear a cane as much as you use it, and as such it should be a quality piece of work.”
And people such as Joanne Mansour, a 66-year-old arthritis sufferer from Silver Lake, Ohio, whose favorite Fontaine purchase is a blue-print, fabric-covered cane that “looks fantastic with denim.”
“If I was going to have to use a cane to walk with, it was going to have to be fashionable and cool-looking,” she said.
Their concern with the looks of their sticks comes as no surprise to Margaret Wylde, whose Mississippi-based ProMatura Group specializes in market research on senior trends and products.
“We’re vain until the day we die,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody that I have met that wants an ugly cane. As baby boomers get older, we’re going to be seeing more and more designer stuff because we’re a big enough market bulge, and we’re used to having our own way.”
Fontaine and his wife, Kay, carved out their niche supplying attractive and properly sized canes to legions of cane users of all ages who refused to settle for the drab devices sold in pharmacies and home-medical supply stores.
The Fontaines closed their retail shop in Los Angeles in 1990, moving their workshop to the forested slope of southern Oregon’s Onion Mountain and selling exclusively through their catalog and Web site.
Each week Fontaine crafts 25 made-to-order canes, including classic ones of oil-finished oak, maple or walnut; whimsical canes with fabric covers or hand painting; durable canes made of laminated hardwoods; and elegant canes in rosewood or ebony with sterling silver handles.
Prices range from $55 to $340. In addition, the company ships another two dozen ready-made canes that it and a select group of suppliers produce.
The look of a cane is important, experts such as Wylde and the Fontaines agree, but proper size is paramount.
In a study conducted for the American Assn. of Retired Persons, researchers found that two-thirds of cane users risked injury from canes that were too tall or too short.
In addition, they discovered that 85% of cane users found the pistol-grip handle more comfortable than the classic crook handle.
“Especially for the very large and the very small, a mass-produced cane can be a problem,” Kay Fontaine said.
“We make sure that the cane is strong enough for them personally,” Mark Fontaine said. “If you can wait three weeks and you’re 260 pounds, I can make it to your size.”
Proper sizing is important to 47-year-old Denis Prisbey of Lake Point, Utah, who uses a Fontaine-made walking stick during nightly strolls.
“This is one of the few cane companies that seems to take its products seriously enough to go to the trouble of determining the customer’s height and weight to ensure they send the right cane to meet the customer’s needs,” he said.
For Mathews, those needs included secure footing and sturdy seating on slick marble floors during a recent trip spent visiting “every church in Europe.”
“This cane’s handle unfolds, butterfly-style, into a seat onto which I can perch my dainty 240-pound tush,” he said.
“Right from the start, attention was given to why and how I was to use this cane. It was built for me not only with regard to my height and weight, but to my lifestyle and to the stresses it would incur.”
Most people don’t think about a cane until they need one, Kay Fontaine said, and that’s when they discover a good cane is hard to find.
“People go to their local department store and don’t find them,” she said. “I had a fellow today--’Nordstrom’s doesn’t have them!’--so they go looking.”
Unlucky consumers may end up making do with a cane produced by a manufacturer who figures people in need of such necessities will settle for anything.
“With manufacturers, they say the only things that move are aluminum,” Wylde said. “A lot of times, that’s the only thing you can find.”
Robert Ross, 67, of Ohio, who was injured in a skydiving accident in 1974, found the House of Canes.
“I didn’t find my new walking stick in their catalog, but they worked with me over the phone and built me exactly what I visualized,” Ross said. “It always gets praise when I’m using it in public. Always!”
