You wouldn’t expect to find the likes of Michael Ovitz scampering around a dingy industrial area on the east side of downtown Los Angeles to check out different types of wood, but that’s where some of L.A.’s wealthiest executives and their designers go for their custom-made office furniture and woodwork.

Fred K. Anderson & Sons Inc. has been in business for 78 years, but only in recent years has it created a niche for itself as one of the premier local woodworking contractors for prestigious office projects. The company builds and installs specially designed furniture, cabinets, wall paneling and other millwork.

Its list of clients reads like a who’s who of L.A.’s entertainment and business elite. Aside from Ovitz’s new Artist Management Group in Beverly Hills (Ovitz personally visited the workshop to inspect the wood), F.K. Anderson worked on the office of Rupert Murdoch at Fox Plaza, billionaire Eli Broad’s office at SunAmerica Inc., the local offices of Goldman Sachs & Co., and the Bijan store on Rodeo Drive among other high-end projects.

“These are very successful people, and their office is their ultimate personal statement,” said John Anderson, the company’s president and chief executive (and grandson of founder Fred K. Anderson). “This is where they bring in people to make deals with or to build relationships with, and it is a major reflection on them.”

A successful niche

The company’s focus on the most prestigious architectural woodworking jobs has proved to be a financial success. Revenues have jumped from $3.4 million in 1996 to $9.5 million last year.

“From a business standpoint, it’s an extremely good niche to be in,” said Anderson. “But at this end of the spectrum, it’s also an extremely high-pressure and complicated business to be in. I mean, you don’t want to mess up on Michael Ovitz’s office.”

F.K. Anderson has been in the same location, next to a seafood importer between San Pedro Street and Central Avenue, for the last 40 years. Traditionally, the company’s bread and butter was doing the woodwork for retail branches of such institutions as United California Bank. As this repetitive business started to decline, with banks consolidating branches rather than opening new ones, F.K. Anderson started to concentrate on developing connections with top interior designers, such as AREA and Gensler.

Now F.K. Anderson has become one of only a handful of local woodworking contractors with the skill and experience to take on the most demanding jobs.

“Millwork is often the most expensive part of a project and the most difficult one to rectify if it isn’t done right,” said Steven Drucker, design director for interior architecture with the SmithGroup, which hired F.K. Anderson to do the millwork for Goldman Sachs’ L.A. offices. “So you want to use people you can rely on to do it right, and F.K. Anderson is very focused and proactive they don’t wait around for problems to crop up. And I love the fact that they’re local, so you can just go down to their shop and see how things are going.”

A key concern for Drucker and other designers is that contractors be consistent in producing the best-quality work from one job to the next. In order to maintain this consistency, F.K. Anderson has to stay vigilant in hanging onto its highly skilled workers and recruiting and training new ones, a task that has become a major challenge.

Recruiting Latino craftsmen

Whereas 20 years ago the company’s workforce was made up predominantly of Europeans, many of German origin, today the bulk of the all-union workers are young Latinos.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, you’d be looking at these old Europeans and you’d have thought that, when these guys are gone, it’s going to be over because nobody will know how to do this kind of work anymore,” said Anderson.

As it turned out, by spotting the looming workforce crisis at an early stage, the company has been able to bring in a new generation of craftsmen. The company works closely with L.A. Trade Technical College, offering apprenticeship programs for students.

Those apprentices who stick with it and put in the years it takes to build up the skill level needed for such high-end woodwork can look forward to a substantial paycheck. The best installers and carpenters at F.K. Anderson make as much as $40 to $50 an hour, plus benefits.

“To have an all-union shop makes the work more expensive,” said Anderson. “But the final result is what matters. These are unique people and we rely on them for the work that we do.”

In spite of the company’s impressive growth in the last few years, Anderson, who recently took over the helm of the company from his father Earle, remains cautious about future growth.

“This can be a tricky business and you have to be careful and watch your bottom line, because expenses can get out of hand really quickly,” he said. “But with the contacts we have built up in the design world, we may start to do more work outside of Los Angeles.”