ENLIGHTENED


MARTHA STEWART HANDPICKED AN OPA-LOCKA COMPANY TO PROVIDE LIGHTING FOR HER TELEVISION SHOW THE APPRENTICE: MARTHA STEWART
BY DARA SOLOMON
U/Miami News Service

''In essence, it was lending them the lighting, so there was not really a contract for the sale. The contract was mainly ground rules for how publicity works,'' he said.
Although Stewart's The Apprentice was not renewed for a second season by NBC, she will use the loft that features the Luraline lighting as a semi-permanent showroom for her furniture line, Mandelik said. The showroom atmosphere is a fairly new concept for the company.
''We do business with most every lighting and electrical retailer in the area but most of our fixtures end up on commercial projects as opposed to on display in showrooms,'' Levine said.
Luraline recently donated lighting fixtures from its Vanguard series to an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The line is heralded as ''vapor-tight'' and of industrial strength. The episode of the show gave a makeover to Camp Barnabas in Purdy, Mo., which caters to critically and chronically ill children. Mandelik said the decision to give the equipment was an easy one to make.''I don't know of any company that wouldn't donate to such a cause,'' he said. ``When it's something as important as young children -- and on top of that, the children are ill -- you can't say no.''
What Luraline will say no to is leaving Opa-locka, an

 
When Martha Stewart decided on a theme for the set of her television show The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, she wanted to mix her traditional furniture line with something edgy and industrial.
The kitchen was a place to contrast with the rest of the loft where would-be apprentices live as long as they are in contention for the job. The appliances are shiny, stainless steel; the black iron chairs enhance the industrial look, and Stewart's crafty centerpieces sit on the silver table.
The domed silver lighting fixtures also lend a lot to the scene -- and these fixtures were manufactured at Luraline, a 38-year-old company tucked away in Opa-locka.
Stewart already had some Luraline lighting fixtures in her horse stables located in her Connecticut home. While visiting, Kelly Van Patter, production designer for the show, fell in love with the aluminum pendant lights that hung in the stables. The lights, Van Patter thought, would be perfect for the Manhattan kitchen loft where the apprentices stay during the taping of the show.
''I wanted to merge traditional furniture with a very contemporary loft setting, what you would think of when you think of a New York City loft,'' Van Patter said. ``You can't have a New York City loft without an industrial element, and the lighting was a great place for the industrial element to come through.'' Officials at Luraline were thrilled, said Vice President Kurt Mandelik.''They had the lights preselected already, as well as the colors of their choice. We did learn that Martha Stewart selected the colors herself,'' he said.
The Reflecta dome lights are tapered and angled fixtures crafted from aluminum, and painted virtually any color requested. They are suitable for indoors and outdoors and are used in everything ranging from shopping complexes to kitchens, as in The Apprentice loft, Mandelik said. The contract with Martha Stewart was not for purchase of the equipment but for a loan, said Luraline President Howard Levine.
economically depressed city of about 15,000 that isbattling high unemployment and poverty. Many of the company's full-time employees are from the community, Mandelik said. They build the products, as well asship them. Some have been working for Luraline for 20 to 30 years. The company also reaches beyond Opa-locka, with 65 sales representatives in almost every state, Mandelik said.Although the firm enjoys a lower tax rate than in cities with more prestige, Mandelik said moving would cause Luraline to lose a lot of these loyal and dedicated workers.''We don't want to upset the apple cart by heading north, where, yes, it may be more prestigious, because the chances of our employees coming with us would be a major issue,'' Mandelik said.And the workers would be upset, said Alfredo Perez, a nine-year employee who has worked his way from customer service manager to office manager. ''I love working here,'' Perez said. ``It's like a family.''
Luraline employees are paidbased on experience, Mandelik said. The pay can range from minimum wageup to $30,000 a year, with management employees paid more.
Originally located in Hialeah, Luraline moved once
after the company was purchased in 1970 by Mort Levine.''It was a rent to ownership move,'' said Howard Levine, Mort Levine's son. ``We were renting [in Hialeah] and the rent was either going to double or triple and that caused the move and we ended up purchasing the property [in Opa-locka].'' After Mort Levine died in 1984, his wife Norma ran the company until 2002, when she handed it over to their son. Operating in a 30,000-square-foot facility, Luraline, 2388 NW 150th St., employs about 13 full-time workers and hires others through the Florida Department of Corrections' Opa-locka Work Release Center. The company also recruits employees from among people recently released from prison, Mandelik said. ''The overall picture is just to assist in the community where needed,'' he said. ''Right
now, we only have three folks from that center, butwe've had up to five or six employees from there at one time,'' Mandelik said. They do jobs that any other employee would do and are paid the same rate, he said. Luraline also sponsors an annual It's Your Light design competition, now in its fifth year, in which students, designers and engineers can come up with a prototype for possible production. The winner takes
home $1,500.The company started the competition with a a two-fold goal, Mandelik said: ``We'd like to give back to the community and we're alwayslooking to see what the next generation of workers and designers has in their minds.''Luraline is currently working to develop the winning design from the 2003 contest and get it ready for production. The design, called Lucent, was created by Poormehr Honarmand, who was a 24-year-old industrial design student at Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio, at the time his entrywas chosen.
The fixture ''is designed to look like a structural aspect of a building. It builds from wall to ceiling or wall to wall. The center of it has a very diffused and thin light,'' Honarmand said.Honarmand, who works in product development for Columbus-based Minds On Marketing, remembers he was thrilled to learn he won the competition. ''It was my first developed product and I was still in school at the time. ''It was my first developed product and I was still in school at the time. It was just an unbelievable feeling,” he said.