Seven Decades-Old Business Finds New Location in Oxford by: Leda Quirke 02/06/2008
Seven
Decades-Old Business Finds New Location in Oxford
by: Leda Quirke 02/06/2008
 Timothy Lynch, owner and president of Kenneth Lynch & Sons, manufacturer of garden ornaments, and his daughter Maria Lynch-Dumoulin, vice president of marketing and manufacturing, mingle with some of the cast stone statuary made at their facility in Oxford. (Quirke photos)
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OXFORD - They stand in groups, silent and still,
like ghostly gray sentries in a room filled with fiberglass molds and cast stone urns,
pedestals and finials. Their sightless eyes stare unendingly at their surroundings, their ears oblivious to the footsteps of other occupants of the massive building at 114 Willenbrock Road. The life-sized statues - some of them representatives of the elements, the senses and the seasons, executed in classical style - are the work of Kenneth Lynch & Sons, a company that relocated to the industrial park just a year ago. The company, which creates garden ornaments of lead, cast stone and other materials, is named for its founder, the late Kenneth Lynch. Started in 1930, it evolved from a small forge shop in Manhattan, moving later to Long Island City and eventually to Wilton. Kenneth Lynch's son, Timothy, owner and president of the business today, said his father at the onset worked principally with hard metals, like iron, stainless steel, brass and bronze, supplying architects, landscape architects and interior designers with weathervanes, sundials and statuary for their clients' properties. After World War II, he began to work with cast stone, a mix of sand, cement and crushed limestone with chemicals added for stability. His business surged after he produced a catalog which he distributed free to landscape architects all over the country. The publication was "a home run," recalled Tim, who spent a good part of his youth, when he wasn't in boarding school, in his father's shop. He still owns the first piece he made under his father's tutelage, a handmade, wrought iron chain that held up well to a strength test. "My father was an impatient teacher. You had to get it right the first time," he said. Tim noted that he always had an interest in his father's business, but wasn't always a part of it. For four years beginning in 1968, he was an engineer in the Merchant Marine and from 1983 to 1987, he operated a bicycle store in Wilton. When his father suffered a stroke in 1987 and was no longer able to manage the business, Tim purchased the company. More recently, because the Wilton buildings were aging and inefficient and because the labor market in Wilton was not particularly suited to that kind of business, he began searching for a new building. He didn't find the ideal building, but he did locate a four-acre parcel of land on Willenbrock Road that would nicely support a brand new facility. "It was available, the people were nice and it was within driving distance of New York City where we do a lot of business," he said. Initially, 11 of the company's 12 employees stayed on with Tim after he made the move to his new 36,300-square-foot building in the Willenbrock Industrial Park. They included his wife, Hilde, his daughter, Maria Lynch-Dumoulin, and his son-in-law, Derrick Dumoulin. Maria, who is today the company's vice-president of marketing and manufacturing, has been in the business for seven years. She joined the company after graduating from Wheelock College in 1994, starting in the shops and working her way up. "I can do almost everything except work in the metal shop," she said. Maria said having familiarity with the materials and construction of products is important. "It makes it easier to sell," she said. It is in the shops that Kenneth Lynch & Sons' employees create patterns and fiberglass and latex rubber molds into which stone or metals are cast. Metal scaffolding extending to the shop's high ceilings contain thousands of molds, some of them 35 years-old. Casting of metals is subcontracted to other companies like foundries, but all the stone casting is done on site. Sculptors also are commissioned occasionally to create models out of clay. The company's available products fill a 448-page catalog and include wall fountains, free-standing fountains, urns, statuary, sundials, weathervanes, finials, plaques and benches. The pieces range from three-inch lead birds to 100-inch tiered fountains of cast stone. The company's best income producers are the cast stone items and the benches. The latter, which have cast iron arms and legs and slats of an anti-fungal South American wood, known as Ipe, can be seen in parks throughout the country, including Central Park in New York and Disneyworld. The benches are similar in style to those produced by Kenneth Lynch in collaboration with landscape architect Robert Moses for the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. The primary customers of Kenneth Lynch & Sons continue to be landscape architects seeking ornaments for municipal, residential and commercial properties, including resorts. One of the company's most impressive projects was four, five-foot-wide cast stone ram's heads, one for each side of the top of a new 60 to 70-foot-high cooling tower on the University of Virginia campus. Created from a sketch provided by the university, the challenge was its size and sculpting detail. The ornaments, which were installed in September, "are becoming an icon for the area, " Maria said. While some of the industry's work is on a grand scale and fashioned from professional designs, the company is more than willing to accommodate a customer who wants a special sundial or other garden ornament for his yard. "It's one price for all clients," said Tim. Maria said the company is planning in the spring to open a showroom where the public can view the products. In the meantime, they can see those items in the company catalog, which is available for purchase for $10 at the shop or $15 by mail. Information also is available by phone at 203-264-2831 or on the web at www.klynchandsons.com. The company's e-mail address is info@klynchand sons.com İVoices 2008 |
