About ARTO

It started on a milk route.

In the late 1950s, Arto Alajian left Heliopolis, Egypt, and landed in Venice, California. He had grown up in his father's factory, where he learned to design shoes. Tile would come later.

He worked nights as an airplane mechanic while he studied, sold ice cream during the day, then ran the milk route for Adohr Farms, house to house, restaurant to restaurant, every morning across Venice.

In those years he met Irene Birkenbreiter, a muralist. He began making thin clay brick veneers to frame her murals. The frames found their own audience. He showed them along his milk route, sold them to the homes and restaurants he already visited, and came back later to install them himself.

1966 The year the brick outpaced the milk and ARTO became a company. The work had been underway for years before that.
Vintage black and white family photos, including a shoe storefront with ARTO written in English and Arabic above the windows
From the Alajian family album.
  1. HeliopolisEgypt
  2. BeirutLebanon
  3. New YorkNew York
  4. HoustonTexas
  5. VeniceCalifornia
  6. ARTO1966

Today

ARTO is a materials works.

We make handcrafted tile, brick and pavers in clay and concrete. We finish and detail natural stone into ARTO pieces. We curate porcelain that meets our standard. Think stone works, iron works. One design language, one standard of craft, every material under one roof.

This is not a tile company that also sells brick. This is a materials house with a maker's soul.
A house clad in ARTO concrete relief tile in Compton Natural Gray

ConcreteWorks

Tile and pavers cast and finished in Los Angeles. Color and texture that never see a flame.

Explore concrete
An interior floor of ARTO clay tile

ClayWorks

Hand-pressed tile and brick, fired into variations that never repeat.

Explore clay
ARTO Stone Born 4x4 tile in Vesper, honed

StoneWorks

Natural stone, treated by hand to bring out what is already there.

Explore stone
ARTO curated porcelain in Murotto Nero

Porcelain, curated

Only the pieces that earn a place next to everything else.

Explore porcelain
A floor of ARTO star and cross tile in cream and charcoal, seen close A fireplace faced in ARTO Artillo Arabesque in Early Gray

Rustic Elegance

Color you can feel. Texture you can see.

Our work doesn't disappear into a wall. Surfaces hold tool marks, edge softness, the small honest evidence of a hand. No two pieces are exactly alike, and that's the point.

Clay
Comes out of the kiln in unrepeatable variations, flashed, layered, warmed by fire.
Concrete
Holds its color and texture without ever seeing a flame.
Stone
Treated by hand to bring out what's already there.
Porcelain
Curated carefully, only the pieces that earn a place next to everything else.

We call this Rustic Elegance.

Rough and refined at the same time. An uneven handmade edge paired with a glaze that catches light. Texture you can feel with your eyes closed, in colors that belong in a gallery.

Far from perfect, and that's the beauty.

Custom

Custom didn't start as a department.

In the early years, custom was just what we did. Answer the phone, listen to what someone needed, figure it out. Sixty years later the spirit hasn't changed. There's just a team and a workflow behind it.

Hard surfaces are notoriously hard to customize. Most tile, brick and paver companies sell from a fixed catalog. We've never worked that way.

  • Custom glazes
  • Custom shapes
  • Hand-painted designs
  • Color matching
  • Historical restoration
  • Pieces that have never existed before
Start a custom project
A bathroom in a Pasadena Spanish revival house floored in ARTO Artillo 12x12 in Smoke

A designer

couldn't find the color they needed.

So we mixed it.

A homeowner

brought us a chip of tile from a 1920s bungalow they were trying to honor.

So we matched it.

An architect

needed a hand-painted mural for a hotel lobby.

So we painted it.

Bring us a photograph, a sketch, a story, and we figure it out.

Made in Los Angeles

Designed and handcrafted in Southern California.

We make tile in Los Angeles. Most of the tile sold in America doesn't. In the handcrafted end of the category, the number made here is smaller still.

How do we manage it? We compete against products made with different employment standards, environmental rules and cost structures. The math shouldn't work. It works because the people in this factory have been doing this for a long time, and because what comes out of it is something people want.

Made here, by hand

  • Artillo and Roman concreteCast and finished
  • Clay tileHand-pressed and fired
  • Custom glazesMixed
  • Custom muralsPainted
ARTO makers finishing cast concrete tile on the factory floor
Finishing concrete
Glazed green clay tile rolling into the glowing kiln
Into the kiln
A maker hand-glazing a patterned tile, line by line
Hand-painted
Gloved hands pulling a concrete tile from its mold
Out of the mold
A maker feeding a sheet of clay through the tile press
Pressing clay
Rows of freshly glazed hexagon tile on the production line
Off the glaze line
Days, not months.A custom request can move from sketch to sample in days. Our quality isn't decided by a shipping container.
We control every step.The kiln, the clay body, the glaze chemistry and the timing of every production run.
More on the way.We plan to grow this. More US manufacturing is in the works.

Our hearts are in our hands.

Technical

Craft, with the rigor behind it.

In imported porcelain, this kind of rigor is standard. In handcrafted ceramic, concrete, brick and stone, it almost never is. Most of the handcrafted world sells beauty without the technical paperwork to back it up. We do both.

Proud members of

TCNATile Council of North America
NTCANational Tile Contractors Association
CTDACeramic Tile Distributors Association
EPDsEnvironmental Product Declarations across concrete, ceramic and glazed brick.
HPDsHealth Product Declarations for the same lines.
CSI 3-part specsFull specifications, ready to drop into project documents.
Installation sheetsComprehensive guides for doing it right the first time.
LEED-eligible docsDocumentation for projects that need it.

The factory floor is part of the industry story too. It is where the product is made, and where the story stays honest.

Visit the technical library
Vod Alajian with his father, Arto, standing arm in arm in the ARTO office Armen Alajian with his father, Arto, at his desk in the ARTO office
Top: Vod with his father, Arto. Bottom: Armen with Arto. From the Alajian family album.

Since 1966

A family business, still.

ARTO is run today by Arto Alajian's two sons, Armen and Vod Alajian, alongside more than 80 people who handcraft this product every day.

Same family. Same building. Same standard since 1966.
2ndgeneration of Alajians running ARTO
80+people handcrafting every day
60years and counting
We are still a company you can call.

The phone rings to a person who knows the product. The factory floor is open to anyone serious enough to come see it. Just call first. We are a working factory, not an exhibit, and the kiln keeps its own schedule.

Get in touch

You are the star of the show

For sixty years, our line was "We make cool shit for cool people making cool places."

Cool people work with ARTO to build cool places.

That one starts with you. ARTO is a box of color and texture. The person shaping the space picks from the box and makes the place. The project is the star. We serve the customer. The customer serves the dream of the owner.

A bungalow kitchen floored in ARTO Artillo hexagon in Cotto Dark

Homeowners and property owners

The dream starts with you.

A kitchen for your family, a patio for your friends, a hotel for your guests. You are building a place for the people you love or the people you serve.

Order samples
The ARTO Studio Amaryllis pattern on a wall, Tortoise against Linen

Designers and architects

You translate the dream into a plan.

We make the materials, and custom answers when the catalog runs out, so you can give clients something nobody else can.

Request specs
Glazed ARTO Corduroy tiles laid out together in greens, greys, blues and reds

Dealers

You're in the room when they walk in.

Local knowledge and an eye for your market. We back you with samples, displays, training and the catalog depth to be the answer.

Become a dealer
An El Segundo entryway in ARTO 8 inch Roman hexagon, Cotto Dark

Contractors and installers

You decide whether it gets there.

Same materials, different hands, different result. A project installed properly should last 50 to 100 years. That bar is yours to hit.

Installation guides

You're the cool people. The place is yours. We make the material.

Test yourself

How well do you know ARTO?

Sixty years of history, five questions. Everything you need is on this page.

  • 5 questions
  • About 1 minute