Church Hill Classics Acquires Lasting Memories

DANBURY — Church Hill Classics, a leading manufacturer of licensed diploma and certificate frames, has completed the purchase of Troy, Ohio-based Lasting Memories, a long-established provider of exclusive college campus and landmark photos.

 Church Hill Classics has acquired the assets of Lasting Memories, including its substantial photo inventory, diplomashowcaseframes.com website, wholesale buyers’ store contacts, sales leads, copyrights, and trademarks.

The acquisition of Lasting Memories’ extensive collection of exclusive school photos will allow Church Hill Classics to expand its growing photo inventory and offer photo/diploma frames for more schools, with a greater variety of campus scenes to complement the diplomas in these specialty frames. The broad photo inventory includes campus scenes from such schools as Carnegie Mellon, Brigham Young University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Delaware.

“The addition of the Lasting Memories campus photo and diploma frame line will further expand our unique product offerings in a market where school-specific customization is critical to success,” explained Lucie Voves, president of Church Hill Classics.

Church Hill Classics (CHC) has been manufacturing handcrafted diploma, photo, and certificate frames for more than 14 years. CHC was launched by Lucie Voves in the basement of her Newtown home, and named the company after Church Hill Road, a local landmark.

The company’s operations manager, Robin Schultz of Brushy Hill Road in Newtown, was one of the first “basement” employees and now oversees the company’s production, purchasing, and daily operations at its facilities on Shelter Rock Lane in Danbury.

The company customizes frames for more than 600 institutions of higher education across the United States. In addition to diploma frames, Church Hill Classics also creates specialty frames for the military, corporate, and professional association clients.

Recently, CHC was named an Inc 500 fast-growth company, and in 2004 was awarded the prestigious Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, sponsored by the Connecticut Better Business Bureau. The BBB also presented CHC with an award for Outstanding Website Marketing Message for its diplomaframe.com site.