Demo

The Beacon of The STone InduSTry www.slipperyrockgazette.net
Sambor Stone Ltd: Building a Residential and Commercial Powerhouse in Chicago
Sambor Stone Ltd. owners and crew. Sambor Stone Ltd. recently hosted a Stone Fabricators Alliance event at their shop in South Holland, Illinois.
I learned a lot of things in college, but most of all I learned that em- ployees are the main staple of any business.
“I worked in the shop throughout college, and then got involved with a rep firm that sold various prod- ucts to hotels, which then led us to doing hotel work for construction companies and their subsidiaries. We were doing work that was too complex or too timely to be brought in from China, and we filled in the gap with those types of jobs. Then, when the Chinese tariffs came in, we created a division exclusively for producing hotel work.”
Making the Cut
Divisions for doing high-end commercial work as well as for wholesale residential work were created, while contract cut-to-size work has also become part of the equation, said Jonathon.
“In the post tariff world, Sambor Stone has shifted our focus to the domestic production of cut-to-size countertops for the hospitality and multi-residential sectors. As we all know, this type of work used to be produced overseas, and it is
always deadline driven, so when the opportunities to produce this type of work domestically presented itself, we needed to quickly identify a source for im- mediate access to large amounts of material.
“To accomplish this, we’ve partnered with domestic quartz manufacturers like Daltile to se- cure up to 10,000 sf of slab ma- terial in a short period of time. These partnerships have allowed us to deliver multiple large scale projects around the country, in a relatively short period of time, and that has helped us to build a reputation in that segment as a viable and cost effective alter- native to our volatile overseas competitors.
“We are also doing a lot of light, medium and heavy commercial work in downtown Chicago that is either general contractor specific or through mill work companies, cab- inet companies, kitchen and bath companies, builders or residential walk-ins. So we do a little bit of everything.”
Please turn to page 2
January 2020 Volume 26
Located in South Holland, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago, Sambor Stone’s roots can be traced to the residen- tial construction market during the 1990s. Initially, operated as First Choice Construction, and soon after, The Granite Place. It was these small but growing companies that set the stage for a new business destined to prosper in Chicago’s stone fabrication market, recalled Jonathon Sambor.
“My dad, Jan Sambor, was a res- idential home builder in north-cen- tral Chicago during the 1990s. The area was gentrifying with high- end homes, and dad was part of that. During that time, there was a shortage of stone masons, so dad and another individual decided to start doing the stonework them- selves, creating a partnership. Soon after, my mom, Margaret Sambor, opened up The Granite Place, a strictly retail establishment geared toward stone fabrication in the res- idential market.”
Things were going great for the Sambor family well into the 2000s.
Peter J. Marcucci
Photos Courtesy Sambor Stone
New, modernized equipment was brought in to fill the demand, and success was on the horizon. That is, however, until the economy changed, explained Jonathon. “It was 2007, and I was 20 years old at the time that the economic crash happened. There was no work, so I set up Sambor Stone in 2008 as a way to get into the Mason’s Union. In Chicago, if you’re installing commercial work, you are required to be union. But our fabrication shop wasn’t, and it was a way of separating the two entities to be compliant with how commercial projects are done in Chicago.”
Accuracy Through Education
Over the next few years, fallout from the recession slowed but con- tinued, and acquiring stone work was competitive, to say the least. A temporary change in plans was in order that would help to set precedence for a brighter future. “The economy was still turned
off, and I didn’t do anything with the company for a few years,” he continued. “Instead, I went back to college and got my degree at the University of Illinois in Chicago, majoring in business management.
Fireplace for the Sophy Hotel in Chicago’s Hyde Park.