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WHITE LOTUS, GREEN LIVING

Home furnishings business markets earth-friendly housewares

Amanda Cafaro / Contributing Writer

Issue date: 9/26/07 Section: Page One
Above, Alejandra Vasquez, a store employee, making pillows by hand at White Lotus Home, pictured below. The store, located on Hamilton Street, prides itself on its handmade, organic furniture. The shop also sells products such as computer pillows, pet beds, and massage and meditation furniture.
Media Credit: Dan Bracaglia / Photography Editor
Above, Alejandra Vasquez, a store employee, making pillows by hand at White Lotus Home, pictured below. The store, located on Hamilton Street, prides itself on its handmade, organic furniture. The shop also sells products such as computer pillows, pet beds, and massage and meditation furniture.
New Brunswick can rest easy at night, literally, knowing that an organic, all-natural mattress and home furnishings company in the city is making sleep environmentally friendly.

In addition to mattresses, White Lotus Home, located on 191 Hamilton St., manufactures products ranging from computer pillows to pet beds to massage and meditation furniture, using only 100 percent organic cotton.

Products are made from other natural materials such as buckwheat, a type of recycled cotton called "green" and kapok. Ultracel foam, used to soften mattresses, does not emit a chemical scent when wrapped around cotton. Wool is also utilized, which acts as a natural dust mite repellent and absorbs moisture.

"I like the whole hands-on ethic of the place," said White Lotus Home's Production Manager Ellie Glabau, a Cook College junior who also serves as the head seamstress.

"We don't get anything overseas," she said. "We're a small company. White Lotus Home is like its own little family."

All of the company's furniture is made from hardwood such as maple, ash, poplar and cherry, which is imported from Connecticut, Vermont and Ohio.

"You're directly benefiting people in the area that work here as opposed to going to a big box store with items from places you've never heard of," Glabau said.

Glabau said one of the most popular products is the double futon couch, which she said is ideal for college students because it acts as both a sofa and a bed. The store obtains its variety of fabrics for covers from the Cotton Belle fabric company.

As a native of Peru, Marlon Pando, the owner and president of White Lotus Home, said being green is the way of life.

"I do hold a MBA and I've been to corporate America, but I appreciate [working at White Lotus Home] a hundred times more," Pando said. "You can get cheap organic cotton from China, but the fact that it travels thousands of miles is not a green thing. We try and work with the local folks."
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