A NEW YORK MANUFACTURING
LEGACY SINCE 1891

Steve Nanz and Carl Sorenson began making hardware at 144 Bowery in 1989. They initially learned the business through the restoration of townhouses and prewar apartment buildings Uptown. The duo soon expanded their production capabilities and product offerings. Assisted by a small team of artisans, Steve ran the manufacturing end of the business while Carl handled sales and marketing. As the product line grew to include cabinet hardware, plumbing hardware and patented locks and latches, the Company opened showrooms in other key markets including London, Boston, Los Angeles and Miami. The factory moved from 187 Lafayette Street to 20 Vandam Street to 21 Belvidere Street in Brooklyn and ultimately to a 50,000 square foot modern facility in Deer Park on Long Island.

Steve and Carl circa 1989 in the original “Nanz Custom Hardware” headquarters in a third floor walkup in NewYork’s lighting district at 144 Bowery.

 

 

144 Bowery: the beginning. Our first real estate acquisition and stand-alone factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Steve’s shop was the top left windows, Carl’s office the right window.

A collection of some of our very first products manufactured on a belt driven Warner Swazey manual lathe that had been manufactured around 1910. It had been gifted to the Company by a downstairs neighbor in the plumbing business.

Carl Sorenson circa 1991 in his corner office on the 7th floor of 187 Lafayette Street. The 2,500 square foot space served as office and manufacturing space. A former printers loft, the building is located on the SE corner of Lafayette and Broome Streets.

Located in what was then the machinery district, we could buy milling machines, lathes and tooling right down the street from a variety of dealers or vendors.

The decommissioned Grey Hound bus was acquired to shuttle our workers from Brooklyn to our Long Island factory. We orchestrated this move without we missing any deliveries. It was one of the Company’s most challenging successes.

Steve and Carl circa 1996 pose in their newly renovated 7,500 square foot space on the 5th floor of 20 Vandam Street.

Our first real estate acquisition and stand alone factory in Bushwick Brooklyn. 25,000 square feet spread of 5 floors. A great looking building but extremely challenging for manufacturing. We happily outgrew it in six years when we were operating with over one hundred employees.

The Boston Showroom on the third floor of a civil war era mansard roofed historic commercial building near Boston Commons. Our by-appointment sales meetings allow our expert staff to conduct a detailed review of hardware and plumbing specifications and make preliminary selections.

Our West Coast presence grew throughout the early 2000s with the addition of a new showroom on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. Since then we have moved to North Robertson. With a wide variety of samples and a hardware expert on site, we provide a wealth of assistance.

Our current Headquarters houses our design atelier, an extensive showroom and the majority of our project management, engineering and sales teams.

Our Long Island factory allows us to manufacture virtually anything. Equipped with a bronze foundry, extensive CNC mills and lathes, an electroplating facility and numerous manual machines for turning, bending, grinding, polishing and hammering, our capabilities are unsurpassed. Shown here is our bronze foundry where we use the lost wax shell casting process. We manufacture all our own tooling in-house and are particularly proud of our proprietary processes.

 

 

THE CLOCK MAKER ORIGIN STORY

August and his half brother Carl J. Nanz (pictured here mid-game) were avid chess players and rose to become Great Grand Masters. Carl was in fact the great grandfather of NANZ & Company’s founder Steve Nanz. It is coincidental that clock making is from where NANZ & Company began its legacy in New York City.

 

While the Hardware manufacturing business has thrived for nearly 40 years, The NANZ Family has an even longer legacy of entrepreneurship and manufacturing ingenuity. Coming to America in the late 19th century, August F. Nanz founded NANZ & Company in 1891 which later became the NANZ Clock Co. with offices at 127 Duane Street, later 90 Varick Street and finally 178 Fulton Street. The Company’s business centered around watchmen’s clocks and novelty timepieces. Carl was in fact the great grandfather of NANZ & Company’s founder Steve Nanz. Coincidentally, NANZ & Company’s office 125 years later is only steps away from where our founder’s great uncle had presided over his clock manufacturing business. Today NANZ & Company maintains a modest collection of period clocks manufactured in New England between the 1880s and 1920s. We invite you to inspect these wonderful examples of mechanical ingenuity and American manufacturing expertise similar to that employed today by our talented decorative metal artisans working in the NANZ & Company factory.

A circa 1891 Nanz Clock Company’s barometer – bezel mounted in a carved mahogany housing.