CHARLEVOIX — An Army veteran who turned to Northern Michigan’s iconic stone for a new path forward is finding success creating home décor and custom art pieces from Petoskey stones.
Fred Falting, owner of Petoskey Stone Tile & More, has been running his business for two years. He said he launched the workshop as a way to stay closer to his parents while shifting away from a corporate career.
“I needed something between a corporate position and being around my parents with their health issues,” Falting said. “So I saw this as a great opportunity to work literally out of the garage making this.”
Instead, he purchases stone from open pits and quarries on the east side of the state, making four to six trips each year.
As demand grew, Falting said he expanded into tile work and developed a process that allows him to cut and shape each stone.
“I started making the tile and then I figured out the process of utilizing mortar to support the stone so I can actually cut it like a loaf of bread,” Falting said. “Everybody asks how you hold an organic shape in a steel vise that is rigid.”
Falting said his work has reached customers as far as California and Texas, including a walk-up bar built with his pieces at a home pool in Texas. He said he takes pride in creating what he considers real art, especially as more people question whether the stones are natural.
“A lot of people have been asking me if this is real stone,” Falting said. “The last year and a half, people have been asking if it’s 100% real. They don’t know if it’s natural or if it’s real, whatever.”
He now attaches small tags to the bottoms of his pieces so customers can share information about the stone and the artwork with others, calling it a simple but meaningful marketing tool.
During a walk through his workshop, Falting showed how the stones look in their natural form, noting their fossil origins.
“This is probably the closest you will see to what it originally looked like, and you’re talking 300 million years ago,” Falting said. “Sometimes you will have horn coral in it and different pieces.”
Even in just two years, Falting said the strongest reward is watching how people react to seeing the pieces in person.
“It’s more enjoyable to see the look on people’s faces when they see it,” he said. “They’re just blown away when they see it, and they don’t realize it’s actually real and they start checking it out.”