Material Girl

Twenty-two years ago, as Margot Hampleman searched for tile for her new house in Aspen, she couldn't help but feel that something was missing. "There was 4"x4" tile in white, black and beige, and there was some stoneware," she recalls. "I thought there must be artists out there who just weren't being represented, so I started looking for them."

And she found them. "First an artist in Oregon, then another one in Ohio," she says. "No one was marketing their products, so I thought I'd start selling them in Colorado. I had no idea what I was doing, but I got some samples, came home and opened up the Yellow Pages, and started making appointments with interior designers."

Over the past two decades, Hampleman has grown her business from those first few samples-"it was literally three black-felt-covered panels with tiles Vel-croed to them"-to three Colorado showrooms filled with a vast array of ultra-luxe tile, stone, mosaics, bath products and lighting fixtures sourced from more than 65 vendors from around the world.

"We've come a long way from the days when we were just getting 12" x 12" stone in, and maybe little molding to go with it," says Hampleman. "In a relatively short period of time, the industry has evolved into something indescribable."

SHOPPING SMART

Choosing a few tiles from a selection that numbers in the thousands sounds overwhelming. But it's how customers experience that selection that sets Decorative Materials apart. More than 200 real-life spaces-from powder rooms to pantries-help clients visualize the finished product and provide valuable inspiration. "Usually, we're showing them things they didn't even know were possible," says Hampleman.

Among those possibilities are luxurious tiles and stones at prices that won't break the bank. Finding them is easy, thanks to Decorative Materials' new Smart Shop, which debuted in all three showrooms this spring. These inspiring boutiques display stone, porcelain, ceramic and glass tiles in a variety of colors and formats "that are lower in price but still come from our same importers and still are great quality," says Hampleman.