Founded by Steve Nanz and Carl Sorenson in New York City, The Nanz Company began with a focus on restoration, reproducing handles and hinges for the numerous pre-war apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. Its very first project was a residence in the famed Dakota apartment block, where the likes of Lauren Bacall, John Lennon and Judy Garland once lived. The firm was tasked with recreating the original hardware from 1884, when the doors to Henry J Hardenbergh’s famous building first opened. Needless to say, Nanz succeeded, and its success and reputation grew from there.
Today, Nanz manufactures the same historic designs as well as myriad contemporary decorative products for interiors of all sizes and styles, both on land and at sea. From the finest doorknobs and handles to hinges, locks and plumbing fittings, the company’s talented craftsmen offer something above and beyond standard hardware. With a network of experts on hand to find the perfect solution,as well as a bespoke service, Nanz can guarantee both client satisfaction and beautifully adorned homes and superyachts.
The brand’s well-appointed showroom in Manhattan is as considered as the company’s designs. Inspired by the pioneer of modernist architecture Adolf Loos, it invokes the atmosphere of a 150-year-old hardware museum. Carefully organised, the showroom presents Nanz’s beautiful hardware designs and the intricate workings of its mechanisms, providing inspiration aplenty for customers.
At The Nanz Company’s factory, located on the south shore of Long Island, the skilled team of artisans is trained in techniques such as lost-wax casting, machining, plating and hand finishing to produce the very finest results. Once manufactured in this impressive modern facility, the products are distributed exclusively through the company’s network of showrooms and expert staff. For those interested in the manufacturing process behind Nanz’s products, the company also has a prototyping workshop at the headquarters with a special service for select clients, offering private demonstrations on how the hardware is made.
The Nanz Company’s ever-growing collection of products draws inspiration from a wide range of materials, colours and textures, resulting in a limitless combination of handles and co-ordinating trims. Extraordinarily beautiful handles of bronze, crystal, wood, leather, or semi-precious stone can be seen in Nanz’s showrooms throughout the world, or sent as samples directly to clients.
Past projects for Nanz vary from Southampton beach houses to Miami penthouses to some of the world’s most famous superyachts. When working with a client, Nanz will happily liaise with architects, builders or designers to discuss specific requirements. Once a brief has been given, the Nanz team will present a range of options, room by room. While the company is known for its huge variety of stock, where necessary Nanz can also adapt any of its products to meet specific conditions or the exact preferences of a client. In the past the company has created special textures for handles, mixed custom colours for powder-coated cabinetry pulls, hand-tailored fonts for engraved doorknobs, custom-designed hinges to meet specific door conditions, and even invented bespoke locks to conceal hidden rooms.
Upon completion of the selection process by the client, Nanz will provide a detailed proposal, a photographic summation, and product and finish samples. “Choosing hardware and customising pieces, imagining how it will appear, and then – only months later – watching it spring to life, is a process that our clients love, and one of the central reasons they will always come back for more,” says Nanz co-founder Carl Sorenson. No doubt it is also the beauty and quality of its products and the care and attention granted to every project that has a part to play, too.
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