Company name: Lerner/Ladds Architects, Inc.
Type of business: Architecture firm.
Location: 236 Hope St., Providence finishing
Principals: Steven L. Lerner and Christian J. Ladds
Number of employees: 10 full-time
Annual billings: $630,000
Year founded: 1976
Steven Lerner said Lerner/Ladds Architects hadn’t had so much as a brochure to promote itself until this year. That’s when he and partner Christian Ladds turned to a local marketing consultant, who produced a package of postcards showing off some of the firm’s best designs.
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The goal, in part, is to attract new clients. But it is also a means for the partners – whose projects have ranged from a bell tower renovation at Providence’s Blessed Sacrament Church to home renovations – to continue being selective when accepting projects.
“We’re not hiding so much, and letting people know we’re out here,” said Lerner, whose father founded the firm in 1934. “Historically that’s the only way we were doing it, was waiting for the phone to ring. We always had plenty of work.”
“They were good projects,” added Ladds.
For instance, Lerner/Ladds was chosen to design a 36,000-square-foot renovation and addition to an unused Brown University building on 107 Angell St. The building will be the future home of Brown’s English department, which is now spread across campus in four buildings, according to John Noonan, Brown’s director of project management in the facilities department.
Construction is scheduled to start in May and finish by September 2000, said Noonan, who declined to disclose the project’s cost or discuss the architect selection process.
“We decided to do this (marketing) while we had work, so we can continue to be selective,” Lerner explained.
“A lot of people are repeat clients there are no phone calls out of the blue,” Lerner said. Though, he added, “one client came in because he liked the entranceway.”
That client was a Massachusetts developer who was exploring the Hope Street neighborhood where Lerner/Ladds is located and near the college his child attended. He was drawn to the modern, glass entry, which gently winds its way from the side of the Queen Anne Victorian until the door itself is parallel with Hope Street. The entry was one of Ladds’ first designs after joining the firm in 1984.
HOUSE ON THE ROKS IN Little Compton won Lerner/Ladds Architects a design award.
This March, Lerner/Ladds’ marketing consultant began sending out the 8.1 ounce “packages,” which are wrapped in an envelop fashioned from red, ribbed cardboard. Theaters, historical preservation groups, colleges and private secondary schools were among those on the mailing list, according to Thomas Policastro, a partner with The Target Group, Ltd., in Providence.
And it is just one indicator that they are not afraid of change at Lerner/Ladds, where slant-top draft tables and T-squares have been decommissioned by computers. Until now Lerner/Ladds, which has three architects and four other staff members, has relied mostly on publicity generated by design awards. It has received both national and local notice, including a 1995 American Society of Interior Designers award for renovating Brown’s Stuart Theatre, honors from the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and photo spreads in Rhode Island Monthly magazine.
“Our advertising is really our awards,” said Kathleen A. Bartels, the firm’s third architect.
Bartels, who joined the firm in November 1996, received a First Design Award last December from the Rhode Island AIA for a summer house she renovated in Westport, Mass. She grew up in Coventry and earned a masters degree in architecture from Harvard University.
Lerner, a RISD and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, joined his father’s business in 1976. At that time the name was changed from Samuel Lerner Associates to Lerner Associates. Ladds, who also attended RISD, was named partner in 1990, which prompted another name change.
Lerner/Ladds new marketing strategy is consistent with numerous architecture firms across the country, which conduct similar programs, said Phil Simon, director of communications for The National American Institute of Architects.
The 63,000-member NAIA is also beginning to promote its members more actively. In March the NAIA debuted its first national TV ad campaign, which has appeared during “Larry King Live” on CNN and newscasts on MSNBC, CBS and NBC, Simon said.
“Architects have not traditionally advertised their services,” he said. “Of course there was many years ago a prohibition against these services being advertised, much like doctors and lawyers. Since that prohibition has gone away, the NAIA thought it was important to raise awareness of what architects do.”
For Lerner/Ladds architects, “the goal is to turn out projects that we’re proud of,” Ladds said. But, he added, “one of the challenges is to weigh the time you spend on design because you could really jeopardize the profit in a whole project.
“Winning awards and producing great designs is great, but if you can’t stay in business what good is it?”
