By Kyle Bagenstose | Photos by Wendy McCardle
In the dark evenings of winter, lighting can be everything. Whether it’s a charming lantern, casting its glow through falling snowflakes as friends or family approach, or an ornate iron chandelier, adding warmth to your dining room during a holiday feast, quality lighting is inviting even on the coldest evenings. With the flick of a switch, foreboding environs can quickly turn to hospitable enclaves. We sat down Tim Baratelle, vice president of the Copper Lantern, a specialty high- end, handcrafted lighting company in Mechanicsville, to learn more about your illumination options.
Like the spirit of the season, light fixtures are always better when authentic, a belief that Baratelle and his wife, Joan, have built their business around. “We started the company in 1996 after realizing there was no place for homeowners to find quality lighting products in the Central Bucks area,” he explains. “People were asking where they could go to buy unusual but nice fixtures – not the run-of-the-mill stuff that’s available everywhere else in the tri-county area. We started selling our exterior fixtures from our construction office, did a couple of local shows and it just started developing. The business just keeps on growing.”
Lanterns for a Lifetime
When it comes to exterior illumination, think beyond the mere porch-light. Baratelle recommends, naturally, the flagship product of the Copper Lantern. “All of our lanterns are crafted with care and designed with both aesthetics and functionality in mind,” he says. “They’re made of solid copper and brass, and we do different aging finishes to give our customers exactly the look they want. They all have hinged doors for easy relamping and cleaning. There are no steel parts and no punch riveting. Everything is handmade and hand- soldered.”
In addition, all the lanterns and components are domestically produced, a source of pride for Baratelle, who also says it’s rare in this day and age. “All of our lanterns are handmade in the U.S.,” he says. “These are lifetime lanterns. They’ll carry you through the life of your home.”
A Touch of Class
What a lantern will do for the exterior of your house, a chandelier can do for the interior. In setting a particular mood and ambience, Baratelle says that the Copper Lantern specializes in finely crafted chandeliers and adorning crystal to add the perfect lighting accent to any room. “Craftspeople make the iron chandeliers and paint them to a customer’s specifications,” he explains. “The iron can be painted in over 60 colors to match the décor of nearly any room. Our most popular shades are brown, gold and rust, but we can also go from white to green, red to black.”
But that’s only half the story. “We then drape them with crystal accents,” Baratelle says. “We do all the crystal designs on all of our chandeliers.” And while crystal may evoke images of magnificent ballrooms – a look the Copper Lantern certainly can accommodate – according to Baratelle, they craft in every size. “We have designs from just a single piece all the way up to hundreds of pieces of crystal,” he says.
A Customer’s Dream
At many lighting showrooms, customers pick up their products and then must go elsewhere for installation. Baratelle says that the Copper Lantern’s installation expertise provides the final key to customer satisfaction. “We have our own installation staff and electricians,” he explains, relying on his over-30 years of experience as an electrical contractor to make sure the job is done right. “We do lighting designs, installations, landscape lighting, recessed lighting. We pretty much do it all.”
While the Copper Lantern leans toward the high-end wares, you just can’t find the full package – from hand- crafting products to properly placing them in your home – anywhere else in the area. “It’s like one-stop shopping,” Baratelle says. “Even if you can’t make it in or are shopping for someone outside the immediate area, everything is available on our Web site, as well. It’s like a virtual showroom.” And when taken all together, the Copper Lantern rises to the top. “It sets us above the rest,” Baratelle continues, “from our knowledge to install, from our products to everything else.”
Go online at copperlanternlighting.com
