Iron creations wrought with love keep entrepreneur afloat

Walking the spacious showroom floor at Artistic Iron Works, founder and co-owner Tom Prato points out design intricacies in the railing for a spiral staircase and ornamentation on grand entry doors. He elaborates on the craftsmanship of wine cellar doors.

Prato's custom wrought-iron creations include fencing and gates, door and window guards, balcony rails, curtain rods, patio furniture, trellises, flower pot racks and wine racks.

All of the displays are designed, fabricated and painted in the workshop at 105 W. Charleston Blvd., in the Arts District of downtown Las Vegas.

Prato's business, established in 1990, is closely tied to the housing market. His revenues started to tail off in 2007 after a strong four-year run. Although he once employed 60 workers, he's had to cut his staff in half.

Remodeling jobs and small commercial contractors are keeping him afloat.

"There's still a pretty solid market of buyers out there," said Prato, a graduate of Basic High School in Henderson and a Vietnam War Army veteran. "We find a lot of business from people picking up repo (bank-owned) homes. Where the housing tracts have come to a standstill, it hasn't hurt us because we work with homeowners who've lived there a couple years and they're going in and redoing ironwork on their homes."

With increasing reports of home invasions and burglaries in Las Vegas, Prato said he's getting more requests for heavyweight security doors and window guards. Artistic Iron Works also offers a line of code-compliant pool fences and gates starting at about $900.

Econoline railing starts at about $25 a linear foot, while decorative interior railing can run from $150 to $1,000 a linear foot, Prato said.

Question: How did you become interested in iron work?

Answer: It goes back to the early '70s when I bought ironwork in Mexico and was selling it on corners. See, I'm not a blacksmith. I've never really been a welder. I just design, organize and manage to make things work.

Question: What's the most interesting aspect of your business?

Answer: Dealing with customers' needs and trying to fit the right design that goes with their style of house and their pocketbooks. You can get elaborate or you can keep it simple. It's dealing with the clientele and creating something for their homes within the range of what they can afford. What you put on a home is like a piece of furniture. It's an investment. It stays with them. People who buy security bars ... it's nice to see their peace of mind. We get phone calls and letters from customers saying not only does it look good, but they have peace of mind.

Question: Who taught you about the business and what did you learn?

Answer: People I surrounded myself with and employed. I bet I've learned something from every employee. If you surround yourself with good iron workers who are familiar with their craft, they leave some kind of imprint in your mind that this is the way you build your product.

Question: Where can some of your best work be found?

Answer: Right here in this showroom. You see everything built for display. Other than that, we've got work all over this entire city, everywhere. You can't begin to count the number of homes. We've got a job in Anthem Country Club ... all the exterior iron around the home, all her design concepts were unique. It took a couple months to build everything.

Question: Your business was previously on Industrial Road. Why did you move downtown?

Answer: We moved for the size of the building and the size of the showroom (13,000 square feet) we could create. We were able to open one of the biggest ornamental iron showrooms in the world. You walk in and see all these fences and rails on display. If you like it, we build it.

This building's got a lot of history. This was the old Carpet Barn. You should see the pictures before we remodeled. It looked like it was ready to fall down. The city was offering us $50,000 for the remodel, redevelopment stuff. We didn't take a dime from the city. We wanted to do it ourselves.

This was a perfect spot. I don't care who lives here or how long you've lived here, you at one time crossed Charleston on Interstate 15. We're hooked in with the Arts District.

Question: How difficult is it to find skilled iron craftspeople and how important is it to your business?

Answer: Skilled craftspeople are extremely important if you're going to put out a quality product. You might find one out of a thousand welders who's got the skill needed to work in this type of trade. It's not normal welding. This is art where you start from scratch. They're very hard to find. You'll hire 15 to 20 guys and one turns out good.

Question: What's your proudest accomplishment at Artistic Iron Works?

Answer: I think finishing off the showroom, from what it looked like before to what we created. We probably spent $4 million on it. To have people come in and see the craftsmanship on display, some of the creative designs for their homes. It's like an art showroom.

Question: We've read about several children drowning in swimming pools over the summer. Could your fences have prevented these tragedies?

Answer: No cost compares to losing a child. I have three kids and four grandchildren. Every one of our houses has an extra fence around the pool that absolutely stops a really young kid from getting in there and they really don't have to be that expensive.

Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.