Before it becomes a beautiful kitchen countertop, a granite slab at Lonnie’s Stonecrafters is carefully prepared using computer software, so that homeowners can see exactly how it will look.

Lonnie’s Stonecrafters Builds on a Rock-Solid Reputation

There’s nothing quite like it, when it comes to granite countertop showrooms. Step inside this brand-new space and discover some of the cutting-edge technologies that help a piece of granite become part of your home.

Before it becomes a beautiful kitchen countertop, a granite slab at Lonnie’s Stonecrafters is carefully prepared using computer software, so that homeowners can see exactly how it will look.
Before it becomes a beautiful kitchen countertop, a granite slab at Lonnie’s Stonecrafters is carefully prepared using computer software, so that homeowners can see exactly how it will look.

Moving a half-million pounds of stone across town, two tons at a time, isn’t for the faint of heart. But no one ever accused Lonnie Presson or his business partner, company president Rick George, of lacking determination.

Surrounded by well-wishers, Presson and George recently snipped a red ribbon for the giant new location of nine-year-old Lonnie’s Stonecrafters, 3291 S. Alpine Road in southeast Rockford. The new location is right off the U.S. 20 bypass, and close to I-90 and I-39. Customers can find it easily, no matter what direction they travel from, which is essential.

“About 70 percent of our business is retail, selling straight to residential customers – mostly people who are staying in their current homes and fixing them up to enjoy or to put on the market later,” George explains.

“Making this kind of an investment is a risk, for sure,” says Presson, who also owns Lonnie’s CarpetMax in Rockford. “But I decided there’s no point in doing what everyone else has been doing in this soft economy: waiting for something magical to happen. I don’t plan to stop selling flooring or granite, so I’m pushing ahead and I’m not going to let up.”

After purchasing the 47,000-square-foot building, Presson and George planned out the space with one thing in mind: Ease of use for customers.

“We want to make the stone-buying process as easy as possible for people, and to house the largest selection of granite slabs in the region,” says George. “We have more than 300 on display already, and soon we’ll top 1,000.” Along with granite, soapstone and marble, there are displays of quartz and engineered stone, too.

Inside the front doors, customers find a well-lit showroom with offices and a complete, functioning kitchen with granite countertops. Through a wall of glass with sliding doors, they see workers cutting and polishing custom orders, using state-of-the- art equipment.

Hundreds of shiny, cool stone slabs – rows and rows of them – stand ready to be admired, touched and envisioned in a customer’s kitchen or bathroom.

“There’s nothing quite like granite,” says Presson. “And it’s probably a lot more affordable than many people think. There was a time when we couldn’t order it in volume, but now we can.”

Decades of success in the flooring industry have taught Presson that being competitive in price is important, but it’s not everything. Owning the best equipment, employing the best-trained people, and building and upholding a rock-solid reputation are all part of the formula for building an enduring business. And Lonnie’s Stonecrafters intends to endure.

“I saw a customer just last week who had paid $1,000 to another stone company that folded the next day,” says George. “He’ll never get that $1,000 back. It’s important to do business with people who plan to be around for the long haul and will stand behind their work.

“To make sure every customer is happy with the end result, we involve them in the process at all of the key points along the way,” George explains. “We don’t want any surprises at installation. We ask them to view the slabs up close in the store, and again on our computer, after we overlay their kitchen footprint with an image of the exact piece they’ve selected. Using our software allows them to see just how the patterns in their granite will fall in their footprint, so they have a chance, before the stone is cut, to tell us if there’s any portion of it they don’t like. We make sure our measurements are perfect, by using a laser measuring system that’s integrated with our CAD [computer-assisted design] cutting machine and SLABSMITH software.”

Investing in the best equipment – American-made, when possible – is a guiding principle here, as evidenced by the American flag stamped on the modern machines in the workspace.

Presson and George also take the high road when it comes to environmental responsibility. Cutting and polishing stone requires a great deal of water, but they’ve installed a recycling system that keeps stone sludge out of the city sewer system and reduces water usage nearly to nil.

“Lonnie didn’t have to do this – it wasn’t required by law or anything,” George explains. “It was an expensive addition, but he felt that as long as we were setting this place up from scratch, we may as well include the recycling system. It’s just the right thing to do.”

This means Presson and George had to install hundreds of feet of grate-topped drains into the cement floor. Dirty water runs into the drains, then feeds into the recycling system and comes out perfectly clear for re-use. Harmless, nearly dry chunks of lightweight rock dust are then disposed in the trash.

“The system is self-contained, so aside from replacing a little water that evaporates, we’re hardly using any city water,” says George.

But great equipment would mean nothing without great people to operate it. This means sending staff members to industry seminars and making sure they’re comfortable answering customer questions about the stone-cutting process.

“Without my wife Kassy and this great staff, we wouldn’t have seen our business grow each year the way it has, even during the recession,” says George.

The business also works closely with kitchen and bathroom design companies. “We learn a ton by working with those folks,” says George. “For example, they’re seeing a lot of interest in lighter shades of stone right now, so we’re stocking a wider spectrum of whites and creams. And, we make their lives easier by delivering dependable results every time. They want happy customers, too.”