Joe Sultan

If ten years ago you had asked Joe Sultan, at the time a practicing architect with his own firm in New York City, what he would be doing today, he would never have said he'd be the CEO of Chilewich | Sultan LLC, a textile design company best known for contemporary place settings and modern flooring.

Though Joe didn’t realize it then, his fate lay with the textile industry. His father and uncles owned and operated a company based in NYC, selling tablecloths and placemats. He worked for them after school and through vacations from the time he was a child through his teens. When Joe grew older, he realized that the arts were more alluring, and became an architect instead of joining the family business. Joe established his own architectural practice in 1983 and specialized in supported housing and community facilities. In 2000, Joe moved his offices to two floors of a walk-up townhouse in NYC. His architectural practice occupied the third floor and Sandy, who was just a few years into Chilewich LLC, took half of the top floor as her studio.

Proximity bred collaboration. While Sandy was beginning to produce woven vinyl placemats, table runners, floor mats and totes, Joe became interested in their potential use as wall-to-wall flooring. As an architect, he realized just how perfect it would be for the contract market. So in 2000, Joe began developing a cushion that could be bonded to the fabrics and made suitable for commercial use. In 2001 Joe and Sandy launched their first line of w2w and tile flooring called “Plynyl.” Over the next three years, Joe split his time between Chilewich and his architecture firm, but became increasingly invested in Chilewich, with all of its products and operations. In 2004, Joe sold his practice and joined Chilewich LLC fulltime and hence the name change to Chilewich | Sultan LLC to reflect their partnership.

So after a thirty-three-year interlude as an architect, Joe is back in a family business selling placemats and other textiles.