By Hollie Deese
Photography by Pamela Monaghan

It has been about a year and a half since Daltile moved from a small gallery off their warehouse on Bransford Avenue and into a shiny new showroom on Sidco Drive, and the team is loving being right in the heart of the Design District.

“All of the designers are over here all day every day, running up and down the street, so we’re a convenient stop for them,” says Lisa McNeese with Daltile. “The uniqueness of having everybody here together — I’m finding it’s so nice that we’re building a team, really, with our other businesses and vendors and supporting each other.”

It’s definitely a new incarnation of what there is to love about old Nashville — community and a collaborative spirit.

“Being born and raised here, this has always been known as the Design District,” says Jodi Pennington, who helps designers in commercial and hospitality design at Daltile. “This has always been known as that area to come for the most unique things that are available. The designers and the builders and the developers — this is the area they all come because they know someone in this area has something that they’re looking for.”

Daltile has an unusual business model; they are wholesalers, but they also are open to the public. At their gallery and showroom, customers choose product for the design staff at Daltile to direct-order for them. They also work directly with designers, builders and contractors, sometimes walking through an entire house at once — an appointment that can take up to four hours.

The majority of their products are made right in Dickson, Tennessee. With one of the biggest natural stone yards in the area, Daltile is a one-stop shop for stone and tile selections. Plus they have several lines that can be customized.

“People come in and they want to be able to look at a tile with their slabs, and so it’s super-convenient,” McNeese says. “Plus, I think a lot of the more boutique-focused companies don’t have the meat-and-potato tile to go along with their product. We have your basic floor tile, and we have something to go with a beautiful mosaic.”

Right now, Pennington says, people are going back to the vibrant retro colors that had gone away for a bit while everybody was into grays and blacks and creams. People are also very into marble, but they don’t want the maintenance and high cost. Porcelain has been a great alternative.

“We’ve got a lot of diverse designers now, lot of new designers,” Pennington says. “Newer generations of designers are not scared to push it a little bit. They get out of their comfort zone, and they experiment with new designs and colors and shapes.”

It’s full circle for a company that has been around since the 1970s.

“We know tile,” Pennington says. “It’s our business; it’s just what we do. It’s always been about tile, since day one.”

Daltile
2976 Sidco Drive
629-208-7199

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