Lamp Crafters Changes Hands And Expands

By Kaaren Valenta

Pushpa Kapur likes to point out that in the 15 years she has operated Lamp Crafters of Connecticut in Newtown, she has never received a bad check.

“The town has really been supportive. I’ve never had a bad check that we would have had to write off, never had customers who didn’t pay their bills,” she said.

So when Ms Kapur decided earlier this year that the time had come to sell the store, she wanted to find the right person to be the new owner. She found Brookfield resident Richard Correia.

“I wanted to be sure it [the store] would continue,” Ms Kapur explained last week in an interview in the showroom of the store at 124 South Main Street. “He’s enthusiastic and has the time. It’s what he wants to do.”

 Ms Kapur had reached the point in her life where she wanted to spend more time traveling and pursuing other interests. But what began as a small wholesale business importing brass candlesticks two decades ago had become a successful retail store that demanded more of her time.

“Lately I was doing it so part time that I felt I was choking the business,” she said. “I had almost stopped my wholesale business. The irony is that when I started the business, it was almost all wholesale. Selling it was good for me, and good for Rick.”

The timing was right for Mr Correia, too. His family had begun operating formal fashion and dry cleaning stores in the 1950s in Danbury and at one point was operating four stores including one in Waterbury, but now they were being sold.

“I was the only son,” Mr Correia said. “My father worked in the main plant in Danbury where the cleaning, pressing, and repairs were done, and I managed all the stores. We operated Formal Fashions and Dry Cleaners on White Street in Danbury until May 1999 when my father retired, and Fairground Tuxedos and Cleaners behind the mall. It’s where the new Christmas Tree Shop will be opening next year.”

Rick Correia started in the family business when he was a teenager, before he went to Western Connecticut State University for a degree in business and law. But the increasing environmental issues in the dry cleaning industry prompted him to look for an entirely different type of retail business, and he settled on the lamp shop.

“I’ve been in sales for 22 years. It’s what I like to do. So I thought this business would be perfect.”

Rick Correia started training with Pushpa Kapur last April and took over the store in May. Ms Kapur still is a buyer for the store, however.

“She goes to India where a lot of our lamp parts come from,” Mr Correia explained. “She also has found a lot of the furniture and accessories.”

Lamp Crafters prides itself in its unique lamps, a huge selection of custom-made lamp shades, expert lamp repair and restoration, and exterior/interior lighting.

“There are only three or four places in Connecticut that carry many of these custom shades,” Mr Correia said. “Many are pierced and hand-painted, very unique – you just won’t see them anywhere else. Some are done in layers and it takes a long time to create them.”

“A lot of people don’t know that we are both a wholesaler and a retailer, one of the largest suppliers of brass lacquered lamps in Connecticut,” he said. “We have craftsmen who put them together. We design them and find also pieces, like a hand-painted vase, to make one-of-a-kind lamps. Because we are both a wholesaler and a retailer, our lamps are very reasonable because we eliminate several middlemen.”

Customers also can bring in their own pieces to be made into lamps.

Mr Correia has begun to expand the business, adding an exclusive Waterford crystal line, a wicker line, Tiffany lamps, and a brass/crystal line. The shop also sells hand carved tables, chests, and other furniture pieces; hand-quilted quilts and duvet covers; mirrors, scenes of area towns including Newtown by Brookfield artist Patricia Gallagan; and other accessories.

Lamp Crafters is open Monday through Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm, with additional hours during the upcoming holiday season. Call 426-1050 for more information.